Micro-blogging platform Twitter is shutting down its video-sharing app Vine after the company registered losses and a slump in profit for this quarter.
Although the real reasons behind Twitter’s decision to shutter Vine have not yet been disclosed, it is being speculated that it is part of the company’s drive to cut costs.
Twitter is also planning to axe about 9% of its worldwide workforce.
The move is also being viewed as not just as a reaction to the poor quarterly results, but as a move to fight against rising costs, stagnant user-growth and slowing revenue.
Tech Crunch reported that Twitter is now concentrating more on its Periscope product and live streaming rather than looping videos of a few seconds long.
Twitter has also added live stream options to its platform which sends out alerts when someone the user is following goes live.
Twitter is also trying to develop live TV and has entered into partnerships with several organisations including NFL and Bloomberg.
Twitter, in its blog said that though Vine’s mobile app will be shutdown, the website will still be up and running so that users can download and save videos from it.
The company said, “We’ll be keeping the website online because we think it’s important to still be able to watch all the incredible Vines that have been made.”
Twitter has however not mentioned any details or date of the shutting down of the service.
Vine started out as an app on iTunes in June 2012 and had become quite popular in a short time. It was acquired by Twitter in October, 2012 for $30m.
As of December 2015, Vine enjoyed a 200 million user-base, but for a few months now there has been a steady decline in the number of users.
Vine has also failing to compete with services like Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube with download on different app stores declining.
