Vine and dandy

Hey all, it’s Kurt in San Francisco. Vine may be making a comeback under Elon Musk. But first…Today’s launch day: Sign up for Cyber Bulletin [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hey all, it’s Kurt in San Francisco. Vine may be making a comeback under Elon Musk. But first… Today’s launch day: [Sign up for Cyber Bulletin](, our new weekly newsletter on cybersecurity, for exclusive coverage inside the shadow world of hackers and cyber-espionage — and how businesses are playing defense. Today’s must-reads: • Amazon’s market cap [fell below $1 trillion]( • US banks [spent $1 billion on ransomware payments]( in 2021 • The maker of the game Hitman Go [shut down]( Reviving Vine Years before TikTok was a teenage obsession and before Mark Zuckerberg made copying TikTok one of his company’s most urgent priorities, Twitter Inc. had a pioneering short-form video app that many people loved. Now, with Elon Musk in charge, Twitter is looking to [bring Vine back](. It’s a popular idea internally, with lots of employees actively volunteering to work on the effort, according to people on the inside. When Musk [tweeted a poll]( asking whether he should revive Vine, 69.6% of respondents said yes. (Curious that it would end on that number.) The story of Twitter is one of missed opportunities, and Vine is one of the biggest. The app offered six-second videos that helped spur a generation of online entertainers — comedians, musicians, actors — and gave Twitter an “in” with young people before short-form video was all the rage. Despite the app’s early popularity, Twitter couldn’t capitalize. Vine was mismanaged, the business never materialized, and Twitter was unable (or unwilling) to pay the creators who made the app so popular. Everyone moved over to Instagram, YouTube and later TikTok, and Twitter was left with what Jack Dorsey later called his “biggest regret.” Actually making Vine work today would be incredibly difficult and expensive. TikTok and Instagram took the seed that Twitter planted in 2012 and established towering businesses. Their platforms offer creators massive audiences and lucrative advertising deals. Vine, it seems, would need to start from scratch. Twitter employees were asked to [review Vine’s code]( to see what is usable, according to Axios, but this route doesn’t sound promising. “This code is 6+ years old. Some of it is 10+. You don't want to look there,” tweeted Sara Beykpour, a former Vine employee and senior Twitter engineer. “If you want to revive Vine, you should start over.” Another problem is cost: Video hosting is very expensive, and so is the engineering talent required to build the kind of sophisticated recommendation algorithm that Vine would need to compete with TikTok. Musk and Twitter are actively trying to cut costs; rebuilding Vine would expand them considerably. Let’s pretend Musk tries anyway. The move raises several other important questions: - How will Twitter woo high-profile video creators? The company will need to convince creators that starting on a new platform is worth the effort. Some former Vine celebrities (the “Vine stars”) will want their followings back from when the app shut down. I’m not sure that is possible given many of those followers may no longer be on Twitter, but it’s an idea. - Will Vine be its own app? I assume so given Vine’s legacy, though folding the product into Twitter as a new feature would help it reach more people right away. The problem is that Twitter is incredible for news, but it’s not a place people kick back to scroll through funny or interesting videos. - Will Twitter get music rights? A huge part of TikTok’s appeal is the music. Twitter doesn’t have deals with music labels. Getting them is not cheap or easy. I loved Vine. I understand why Musk is interested in bringing it back. I just wonder if he and the 69.6% of his poll respondents have fully considered the task at hand. —[Kurt Wagner](mailto:kwagner71@bloomberg.net) The big story Microsoft says it has an AI that can replicate thousands of different types of jobs. It also has some kinks: For example, when asked to name the most corrupt company, [it answered Microsoft](. Get fully charged Intuit paused hiring at Credit Karma, a business it acquired in 2020. It cited “[revenue challenges](.” There were earnings galore. The chipmaker [AMD beat estimates]( but issued a soft forecast. The video game publisher [Electronic Arts cut its outlook]( for net bookings. The owner of Tinder [pledged to cut costs](. The latest Call of Duty release was the best ever for the franchise, [said its publisher](, Activision Blizzard, which is seeking to close the company’s sale to Microsoft. Uber rider numbers are back to their pre-pandemic levels. But Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi [tells Bloomberg’s Emily Chang](: “Don’t expect [prices] to go back to pre-pandemic levels.” Follow Us More from Bloomberg Dig gadgets or video games? [Sign up for Power On]( to get Apple scoops, consumer tech news and more in your inbox on Sundays. [Sign up for Game On]( to go deep inside the video game business, delivered on Fridays. Why not try both? Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights.​​​​​​​ You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Tech Daily newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](