Twitter boss Elon Musk reportedly wants to bring back Vine

Twitter boss Elon Musk wants to bring back Vine – the short-form video application the company shut down in 2016, say reports.

Multilingual technology blog Engadget, quoiting news site Axios, wrote that Twitter's new "Chief Twit" told a group of engineers to work on a reboot that could be ready by the end of the year. 

Earlier yesterday (31 October), Musk polled his 112 million Twitter followers to ask them if the company should reboot the app. 

When MrBeast, one of the most popular YouTube stars on the planet, said it would be "hilarious" if Musk did that and Vine went on to compete with TikTok, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO asked him – "what could we do to make it better than TikTok?" Bringing back the platform would also certainly seem to align with Musk's stated goal of transforming Twitter into a "super app" akin to China's WeChat.

However, the timeline, like the one Musk reportedly set for monetising Twitter's verification feature, is likely unrealistic. 

As per Axios, Twitter has not updated Vine since it shut down the app more than six years ago. "It needs a lot of work," one source told the outlet, referring to the software's codebase. 

At this stage, it's also hard to see the platform competing with TikTok and YouTube Shorts, even if it does come back, adds the Engadget report.

So much of TikTok's success is a result of its "For You" algorithm which always seems to know what videos will keep you glued to the app.

Vine never had anything comparable, and many of its most prolific creators have moved on to other platforms.