Byte is an American social networking short-form video hosting service where users can create 15-second looping videos. It was created by a team that was led by Dom Hofmann as a successor to Vine, which he co-founded. Byte had been referred to as "v2" during the development stages, before it was postponed in 2018, and it was later resumed as being of the "Byte" project. After a closed beta period that lasted for three years, it was officially launched for most of the iOS and Android platforms on January 24, 2020.
History
Vine
Byte's predecessor, which is named Vine, was founded in June 2012. It was acquired under the name by Twitter in October 2012. It underwent a staggered update on iOS, Android and Windows Phone throughout much of 2013. It was shut down as a new standalone platform by Twitter in January 2017, disallowing all new videos to be uploaded, but being able to maintain the service within the ability for users to actually view previously uploaded content from the past.
v2 and Byte
Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann announced in the December of 2017 via a Tweet that he intended to launch a successor to Vine. At the time, he called it "v2". In the May of 2018, Hofmann posted an update on the v2 community forum titled "Taking a step back", announcing that the project was being put on hold. Among other things, he said that the biggest reason for this was "financial and legal hurdles". He described that his intention was to fund the new service himself as a personal project, but the attention that the announcement generated suggested that the cost to build and run a service that was sustainable at launch would be too high. In November 2018, Hofmann announced that the project was moving forward once again with new funding and a team, under the new "Byte" branding. At the time, the Byte website invited users to sign up for updates and for content creators to join its "creator program". Byte was officially launched to the public on the iOS and Android platforms in over 40 countries on January 24, 2020, with the tagline "creativity first". Additionally, the company has promised a program that intends to compensate creators for their work, saying "Byte celebrates creativity and community, and compensating creators is one important way we can support both." In the media, Byte has been referred to as a direct competitor to TikTok and Likee, a similar short-form video sharing platform popular with teens.
Features
Byte allows users to publish videos from two up to sixteen seconds long either captured through the app or previously recorded and stored on their devices. Similarly to other social media platforms, Byte allows users to follow other accounts. New accounts automatically follow Byte's official account on their service. The main home screen features a scrollable feed of content from accounts that the user is following. The platform also supports the ability to "like" and "rebyte" videos. The app also features a search screen with tiles for popular and latest content along with video categories like Comedy, Animation and others.
