Byte, A New Version Of The Beloved App Vine, Just Launched

Back in the good old days of the internet — circa 2016 — there was an app that let you share and watch six-second looping videos. It was called Vine.

It launched in 2013 and quickly grew into a fun and vibrant community. But without a way to monetize, many of its best creators fled to other platforms, such as Snapchat and YouTube. Twitter, which owned Vine, announced it was going to close up shop in 2016. And finally, one winter’s day in 2017, it ruthlessly shut it down.

People, many of whom hadn’t used Vine in ages, were devastated. Vine was fun. It was uniquely internet-y. And its death was tragic. As BuzzFeed’s Summer Anne Burton wrote, “Vine may have been the internet’s first real native art movement.” And then everyone went to TikTok.

Now, Vine is back. Kind of. Dom Hofmann, a co-creator of the original Vine, has reimagined it as a new app, called Byte, which debuted today. It’s available on iOS and Android. And it already has some of that old Vine feel, as you can see from some of the videos above.

So welcome back, Vine. Or Byte, if you prefer. It’s like you never left. Stay a while this time, would ya?