Twitter just released a video-sharing tool called Vine that makes it easier for people to capture short clips and share them instantly with the world.
Twitter bought a video startup by the same name late last year, and just yesterday CEO Dick Costolo tweeted a video using the Vine app:
Steak tartare in six seconds. vine.co/v/bOIqn6rLeIDvia @dhof
— dick costolo (@dickc) January 23, 2013
As Costolo’s relatively mundane demo shows, each clip is limited to six seconds (apparently that’s the video equivalent of 140 characters), which loop continuously. Peter Kafka at All Things D explains what else sets Vine apart.
There are other apps that do something similar, but one notable difference with Vine is the way you use it — after hitting a “record” button on the app, you hold your thumb on the screen to start filming. Take it off, and the camera stops. You can use the app to create one straight take, or take lots of little shots, and make digital montages or flip-books.
For journalists, this kind of easily created mobile video could be a significant development.
Think of the impact Twitter has made so far on real-time reporting — making everyone, everywhere, a potential instant eyewitness who can share text or a photo with the world. Now think of how that effect is amplified when the public can easily start sharing videos of the same events.
For one, videos have the potential to be more realistic or graphic than a still photo. That’s good when you want to bring the world virtually closer to a news event. But also think of how much more traumatic the bystander documentation of the Empire State Building shooting would have been if the photos of dead victims were instead videos, with action and audio.
This may raise new ethical questions for journalists about how and when to use some citizen-generated videos in their reporting.
At the same time, it gives journalists fewer options for balancing ethical concerns. For instance, with a news photo you can quickly crop or blur specific areas the public shouldn’t see. When dealing with a video, that’s much harder to do.
Of course, that same fact would make videos posted with Vine harder for a user to fake. Not impossible, of course. But much harder than just, say, grabbing a shark fin off Google Images and pasting it into an image of a flooded New Jersey neighborhood.
Twitter is launching Vine as a standalone app, first for iPhones, that will share videos to Twitter.
Here are some reactions and videos from journalists:
How long before the onslaught of Vines on coffee cups, Tweetdeck columns and tours of office desks? It’s coming.
— Daniel Victor (@bydanielvictor) January 24, 2013
My #firstpost on Vine vine.co/v/b5HUBpiYdYa
— Dan Simon (@dansimoncnn) January 24, 2013
For my 1st Vine post, reminding Twitter I sill use old TweetDeck vine.co/v/b5H6qXH5hJQ
— Michael Roston (@michaelroston) January 24, 2013
.@nowthisnews‘ #firstpost to @vineapp!Tour our office in 6 seconds. vine.co/v/b5HQKiVmiDH
— NowThis News (@nowthisnews) January 24, 2013
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