On April 9, 2013, Vine became the most downloaded free app within the iOS App Store. Vine let you share 6-second looping videos.

👇🏼 Watch the 1-minute marketing takeaway:

What you can learn from Vine’s most brilliant, simple feature:

Containers (limitations) spark creativity.

Three of the most successful social networking apps have limitations on content length or availability, clearly a feature not a bug:

  • Instagram
    • IG video feed posts are capped at 60 seconds, (or really 59 seconds if it’s an audiogram due to a persistent upload bug, IYKYK)
  • SnapChat
    • 60-second video limit. Snapchat stories are viewable for 24 hours after posting, for the most part.
  • TikTok (the best algorithm on the planet, btw)

Mini-podcast

Contained in 5 minutes, twice a week: