At the end of January, Twitter announced a new mobile service called Vine, which allows users to create and share looping videos.

“Like Tweets, the brevity of videos on Vine (6 seconds or less) inspires creativity,” the company said in an official blog post. “Now that you can easily capture motion and sound, we look forward to seeing what you create.”

In essence, Vine lets you make and share six-second video clips. The app is clearly influenced by the recent rebirth of the animated GIF: videos automatically start playing, endlessly loop and are muted by default (though a single click turns sound on). Users will not be making documentaries with these, or any sort of meaningful narrative video clip. It is built for sharing ‘moments’.

How does it work?

To start the camera rolling, you press and hold your finger on the screen of the mobile device. When you lift your finger off, Vine stops recording. If you put your finger back on again, the video recording continues and thus you can stop and start your action as many times as you like within the allotted six seconds per video. In the past fews weeks, it has proved popular to go for the stop motion effect but the option is there to shoot continuously. Either way, Vine processes your footage as a rolling animated GIF-like take on video. In other words, your six seconds go round and round forevermore.

The limitations of the service seem to be as important as what is included. Vine offers no option for editing after recording, nor does it let you import videos taken or downloaded elsewhere.

People are already using it in very creative ways. Within the few weeks since its launch, it has been used to make unexpected art, document precious moments and participate in ‘memes‘. We’ve also seen people using it in a journalistic way:

When a broken water main shut down Fifth Avenue in New York, people documented it on Vine. Long before San Francisco officials explained why trains had ceased running during the morning commute, a Vine video showed a broken-down train in a station. It was quickly picked up by local media.

Vine is available as a separate app, free for download on iPhone and iPod touch devices via the Apple App Store. They are also currently developing an Android version.

To download the app, click here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vuxKb5mxM8g