Last month, Twitter announced that it was shutting down the popular short video sharing service Vine as it struggled to monetize. A new report from TechCrunch, however, explains that Vine might live on after all, as Twitter is entertaining offers from companies interested in buying Vine.
According to the report, Twitter is currently in the process of vetting term sheets from a handful of companies with interest in Vine, with a deal hopefully coming together soon. Interest in acquiring Vine reportedly skyrocketed following Twitter’s announcement that it would shut down the service, with a “large number of bids” coming in, including several from Asia.
While specific companies interested in Vine are largely unclear at this point, one of the parties is said to be Japanese messaging and gaming company Line. Other companies with which Twitter has held talks with are unknown right now, though.
In terms of price, it appears as if Twitter won’t come out with a significant amount of revenue from selling Vine, as “some of the offers are for under $10 million.” As TechCrunch notes, however, Twitter selling Vine would have a variety of benefits apart from a lump sum of cash.
Vine and Twitter are largely connected in terms of sharing. Vines play inline in the Twitter apps across iOS and Android, making for a seamless sharing and viewing process. Thus, the continued use of Vine would motivate people to use Twitter, as well. Additionally, selling Vine would allow Twitter to shift its focus towards its core platform, with another company taking the reigns of Vine, but presumably keeping integration between the two services tight.
Twitter has been under scrutiny lately for its struggle to monetize. The company as a whole was said to be holding acquisition talks with companies like Salesforce, Alphabet, and The Walt Disney Company, though nothing ever came of those talks. Twitter has been facing increased competition from other social services like Snapchat and Instagram, who both have had more success monetizing than it has.
The news of Vine’s demise was actually met with a surprising amount of outcry on Twitter, with users sharing their favorite and the most iconic short clips with one another. Today’s news, however, offers some hope to fans of the 6-second video sharing service…
