Tiktok expanded allowed uploaded video duration up to 3 minutes. The For You Page algorithm (which drives the content you see in the feed) is scarily impressive in how it can match the viewer with content they would most want to see. Lastly, and probably most importantly (in my opinion) Tiktok fosters a home for a vast number of entertaining and informative content creators that give them an edge. Vine mostly went for entertainment in quick six second bursts.
Vine did this too which is a big part of why it's so surprising to me: Vine didn't just have the tech but they had the community. You can still find Vine compilations on YouTube with millions of views that capture the vibrant set of content creators that Vine once had.
Honestly the only real difference between Vine and TikTok in my mind is that Vine was more focused on comedy while TikTok is more focused on music. Otherwise the two services were pretty much identical.
I would add: the world was not ready for Vine.
The amount of content, the type of it, and the number of people out there willing to make goofy content - I mean young and old alike ... is amazing.
The number of people with cellphones and decent cameras recording 'everything' means we now have all sorts of vidoes of 'guy fishing and whale breaches' or literal lighting strikes etc..
And the normalization of content creation, of likes, of views, the possibility of making money from it etc..
Basically the tools, cultural norms, media and social systems - all reached a critical mass some time after Vine.
If Vine were to have held on, evolved along the lines you indicated, they might have beak TikTok to it.
Oh - and one last point: TikTok started with cute dancing girls among teens. That content category is a great place to start, break through, and get a critical mass going before breaking into parrots swearing, cute babies, and funny challenges.
Just want to add that the content consumption was also hindered by the technology.
Fun Fact: Vine was created in the same year the first CNN completed ImageNet with (much) higher accuracy than others contestants.
Twitter wouldn't know a good product idea or how to find one if it hit them in the face.
They got lucky with the original Twitter product, but the biggest change since it has launched is increasing tweet length from 140 to 280 characters.
Compare that to Facebook who - for all their faults - know how to iterate on product ideas and leverage their platform to build new markets.
When Vine started in 2012 there were only ~1B smartphone users.
No, they have in-app purchases?
At the very least it's an interesting parable of how short-sighted "innovative" big tech companies can be.
there's countless examples
The CCP can afford to lose money with TikTok for a long time. Straight from the propaganda budget really.
Update: here’s a reference to leaked documents to this effect: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/technology/...