On the day of Facebook's Instagram press conference, Vine announced new features and enhancements to the video-sharing app that are likely to be available soon, TechCrunch.com reported.
Co-founders Rus Yusopov and Dom Hoffman each posted a six-second "vine" video teasing upcoming changes to the app. For one, it appears as though users will be able to save drafts of videos before posting them. Another appears to be the introduction of an expanded categories feature. Another feature could be seeing the video at the full-width of the phone's screen by removing the space for comments and likes.
Ability to save drafts/categories, as posted by co-founder Dom Hoffman:
The "comment, like and share" feature will not being going away, but appears rather that users will have to click into the vine to do so. This will create a seamless stream of vines with users able to post numerous vines, one after another, with the upcoming ability to save drafts.
The teased updates come on the same day Facebook is expected to announce a video-sharing feature for Instagram and its 100 million users, one that was ready to compete with Vine.
The press conference was scheduled for Thursday morning at Facebook's California headquarters.
"A small team has been working on a big idea," the invitation to the news conference said last week. "Join us for coffee and learn about a new product."
Four months into existence, Vine - which was launched on and is compatible with Twitter - has accumulated 13 million users. Now Instagram seems to be playing catch up with the video-sharing craze, said TechCruch.com blogger Jordan Crook.
"People like consuming video, sure, but it's almost shocking how much people love making videos too," Crook wrote this week. "When I see something cool happening out in the world, Instagram is no longer enough."
Vine has a simple premise and its functions are easy to grasp. To make a "Vine," which is just a six-second video, the user must put their finger on the screen to record and can take as many shots as will fit into six seconds.
All different walks of life, geographies, incomes, all genders, ages, races, backgrounds," Crook wrote. "They use it in all kinds of ways, sometimes hilarious, ridiculous or strange, but all decidedly human."
Enhanced video stream, as posted by co-founder Rus Yusopov: