Vine co-founder, Dom Hofmann, announced today that his planned sequel to the popular and now-defunct short-form video application, tentatively called v2, will be postponed for "an indefinite time" as he realizes the funding and logistics billboards The announcement, made in the v2 forums and relaunched this morning by the official Twitter v2 manager, is a disappointing but comprehensive turn of events. In January, Hofmann suggested that the application could be launched as early as this summer, which was an ambitious calendar.
Hofmann started the v2 project, in his words, "without a plan" last year, mainly as a way to awaken interest in a Vine successor. However, the project received a lot of support from Vine fans who have regretted the death of the application since Twitter closed the original application in January 2017. Now, Hofmann says that, despite the immense interest in his project , he has to take the time to make sure it does not break before continuing. He cites the need for substantial risk financing to start up v2 after initially thinking that he could self-finance it.
"To sum up, to work, the v2 project needs to operate as a company with considerable external financing, probably from investors," writes Hofmann. "This is difficult because I already have a company in the initial phase that is in full development." Very few sponsors would be happy with the divided attention, and I would not either. This is potentially solvent, but it will take time for space and resources to be available. "
The company that Hofmann refers to is Interspace VR, a creative immersive entertainment studio he founded after selling Vine to Twitter years ago Hofmann seems to keep his focus on that project and let v2 simmer for now. "The code and ideas still exist, but until everything else comes together, we can not move forward," he writes. "Once again, This is undefined, which means it could take a long time. But it is necessary. I am very sorry for the disappointment. If it's any consolation, I think it would have been even more disappointing if this service had been developed and published incorrectly, which is where we were headed. I'd like us to do it right. "
Hofmann plans to keep the v2 forums online" as a way to continue the discussion "and added that it will be the first place for all future announcements about the future of v2.
