Vine – Six Second Attention Span

Daniel Doebrich — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:51:35 +0000

Since its launch last week, Vine has become the new talk of the town. Twitter’s new mobile-video-sharing app has the potential to determine how the “Instagram for videos” should look. The opportunities for its use are plenty, and I am sure that many creatives are already wracking their brains to find ways to utilize it for clients. John Battelle put it best, “Advertisers, sharpen your six second pencils. Here’s another native format for you to consider…”

Vine is indeed the perfect format through which to showcase (creative) processes. For instance, top fashion designers could share the secrets behind their latest designs. Going one step further, the catwalks of New York Fashion Week are going to be abuzz with six second wrap ups – from DVF to Oscar de La Renta (Oscar PR girl, DKNY PR girl, are you already working on your concepts?).

I haven’t begun to scratch the surface of Vine’s potential. Brands could use it as a six second how-to-video (well, more of a teaser), or to highlight a cool sports stunt (Red Bull, already on it?), or even to transform a boring manufacturing process into an innovative feat of engineering (BMW, Ford, Lexus I am talking to you). The new ad format is going to be six seconds long.

Finally, Vine offers users the chance to share more than just a picture, without the risk of taxing viewers’ attention spans. The combination of text and a short clip is ideal to sum up any news story, particularly those that cover an emerging topic.

Despite its promise, Vine still faces some hurdles. The app appears to have a few bugs, and is often unstable. Some of the videos I shot were lost after completion. Also, it should be possible to include videos that you have stored in your albums, or to collect stored snippets and draft a video collage later on.

That being said, while Viddy and Socialcam lacked the user base and flow, Vine got it right. Viddy’s 15 seconds are difficult to fill, but too short to achieve true evolution. Moreover, Vine’s practice of assembling short takes is far more conducive to storytelling.

Unfortunately, Twitter’s rivalry with Facebook will exclude Vine from what is arguably the most important social network. This is going to be a deterrent for the masses who feel more comfortable amongst Facebook “friends” as opposed to Twitter’s “open” concept. Nevertheless, Twitter’s ongoing growth will help Vine appeal to a broad audience.

I am excited to see how Vine is going to develop into a native format for creative ideas, not necessary limited to advertising. You can count on the best case studies appearing on Mashable, TechCrunch & Co, in the coming month. Creative types, get behind your cameras!

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Moonrise over Manhattan http://vine.co/v/bJu3W3P1LQn (by @patr1cks)

Hope your day is bubbly http://vine.co/v/b5x566X23m0 (by @lazybearkhoa)

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Vine – Six Second Attention Span

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