Vinepeek Is The Most Addictive New Site On The Internet

An endless stream of six-second videos from thousands of people all over the world. And they don’t really know you’re watching.

I know, right? Now tell your friends!
Vinepeek Is The Most Addictive New Site On...
John Herrman

Vine, Twitter’s new video app, has gotten mixed reviews. Some think it’s a successor to the GIF, or that it’s the “Instagram of video” the tech industry has been waiting for. Others think it’s just riding Snapchat’s short-video wave, and making Twitter confusing. But one thing is certain: Vinepeek is awesome.

Vinepeek was not created by Vine or Twitter, so the site could easily get shut down. But for now it’s up in all its simple glory. It presents, in a nearly unbroken stream, Vine videos as they’re posted. Endless short clips, a maximum of six seconds long, shot by Vine users all over the world.

Most of the videos are unremarkable on their own, and you can spot some soon-to-be-groanworthy Instagram-style trends right off the bat. There are lots of stop-motion eating and drinking videos, for example, and plenty of people are clearly still trying to figure out what, if anything, they need to share via video.

But you don’t have to wait long to find truly beautiful things. In the span of a few minutes, I saw a poorly attended church concert (above), a dance party from somewhere in East Asia, a jump-edited children’s karate class, and a skit a man created about the terrible feeling of opening a refrigerator, hungry, and finding nothing you want to eat. In another, a father asked his young son what was on his mind. After pausing for a couple seconds the son blurted out, “I love you.” Another user, three videos later, had filmed the toilet while he took a piss.

The overall effect is mesmerizing and eerie; the surprising clarity of the iPhone’s microphone provides a constant assortment of low-mixed ambient sounds, punctuated by music and speech in countless languages. Perhaps most compelling is the sense of voyeurism you get — while these videos were posted to a public service, the app is new and unfamiliar and, like Instagram, feels somewhat insulated from the greater internet. Many of these videos were meant for small groups of friends to view with almost complete context. We get to see them with none.

It’s not clear if Vine will be a success, or if Twitter is making the right choice in supporting it as a video platform. But Vinepeek is a forceful suggestion that Twitter is popularizing something new, and maybe wonderful.

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    • Anna P.   Vinepeek Is The Most Addictive New Si...  about 2 months ago
    • Holfish   Vinepeek Is The Most Addictive New Si... and thinks it’s Awkward  about 2 months ago
    • Michael Rutkowski thinks Vinepeek Is The Most Addictive New Si... is Fail  about 3 months ago
    • Jason C.   Vinepeek Is The Most Addictive New Si...  about 3 months ago
    • sreedharp thinks Vinepeek Is The Most Addictive New Si... is Win  about 3 months ago
    • sreedharp 3 months ago

      Hello guys, In fact the constantly changing and unpredictable short videos on the by Vine stream, with amazing visual and sound quality, are like infographics on steroids. You are taken in to a never ending whirl wind of time, space, and motion full of life, engaging your mind as never before, offering an experience entirely deserving to be called a new form of entertainment. It is always there, you feel like taking it in, you watch it. You don’t, you simply ignore it and carry on with whatever you are doing. There is always the next one. In fact Vinepeek actually brings the Social Web to life!

      Here are the links to my articles about Vinepeek.in the Huffpost and Technorati
      and my own blog Lasting Rose

      http://technorati.com/social-media/article/addicted-to-facebook-there-is-hope/

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sreedhar-pillai/vinepeek_b_2572662.html

      http://lastingrose.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/addicted-to-facebook-there-is-hope-now.html
      Weather Twitter will continue with the development of Vine or not, utilities like Vinepeek are sure to pop up as any one who has enjoyed it even for a few hours will now find anything else unsatisfactory. For now My Facebook window is closed and the little Vinepeek is open in a corner of my second screen.

    • Lololnine thinks Vinepeek Is The Most Addictive New Si... is WTF  about 3 months ago
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    • jdubilla 3 months ago

      It’s too bad that Vine is pretty useless on Android devices.

    • Heavy Hawk   Vinepeek Is The Most Addictive New Si...  about 3 months ago
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    • ericao 3 months ago

      Great, now I am never going to get anything done!

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    • CO2 3 months ago

      creepy

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