Social media sites don’t last forever

We’re addicted to posting our every single move online and staying “relevant” that we quickly switch to the latest apps and sites.

Facebook lets you like, share and comment, Twitter lets you write 140 characters or less, Tumblr provides an atmosphere for blogging and Instagram allows you to post pictures and videos of your daily life. Different social media sites allow us to display our lives and ideas, but each form of delivery varies. You would think that our love for social media would allow different sites and platforms to live on forever, but that’s not the case.

Vine has been the most recent social media app to take the hit. Vine allows users to create six-second videos that automatically replay themselves and show how many times the video have been “looped.” While Vine gave many users the opportunity to build their entertainment platforms or to master the art of meme-making, Vine’s inability to evolve caused marketers and Viners to invest in more profitable platforms like YouTube and Facebook. Twitter, owner of Vine since 2012, recently revealed it would lay off about 350 of its workers. It seems like the company is trying to let go of its loose ends (a.k.a. Vine) and focus on its other products like Periscope, a live video-streaming app.

The issues that Vine is experiencing might seem familiar to anyone who had a MySpace account during middle school or high school. MySpace was the go-to social media site from 2005 to 2008. In July of 2006, it became the most-visited website in the United States. Anyone who had a MySpace account remembers having Tom as a friend. MySpace also brings back memories of friends convincing you to add them to you top friends list. We thought our days on MySpace would never come to an end, but then Facebook came along and stole the limelight. Although MySpace gets compared to Facebook, they are quite different. Myspace focused on music whereas Facebook’s focus was on connecting with friends and family. The differences between the two was not enough to stop Facebook from dethroning MySpace as top social media site and marking the start of its path to irrelevancy.

Since new social media sites can make their way into our lives at any given point, there’s no telling what platform will be next to become irrelevant.