The Social Life: Vine and Instagram with video

For a while now we've been told the future of the internet, particularly for media types, is in video.

But it seemed to take forever for Vine to come along.

Vine came out in January for iOS devices and was released for Android users this month. It's a social media app owned by Twitter that records and publishes short bursts of video recorded on your mobile device. It loops whatever you record so your followers can watch your 6-second antics ad infinitum.

One immediately seized-upon capability of Vine has been stop-motion animation, easily done with the app's simple stop-start recording function - hold down to record, release to pause.

It's overly simplistic to describe Vine as Instagram with video, though you'd probably find just as many cats, dinners and sunsets, only in video form.

Many users are using the app to make comedy videos, while some of the most effective posts are timed perfectly with the loop to appear seamless. This is particularly good when combined with a spinning or swooping motion.

One tip when making a Vine video - keep an eye, or rather, ear on the sound around you. One of the most jarring effects of a stop-start video can be changes in background noise.

As for Instagram with video, that's now a reality after the service was launched last week. It's already had an effect. Social media analytics site Topsy says the amount of Vine videos shared on Twitter has dropped dramatically in the past week.

The big question is, can Facebook-owned Instagram stay classy and keep and attract users with a two-way approach? Do people really want to see both photos and videos in their feeds?

You might take pride in only having beautiful photography in your stream - is a video capture going to stack up?

The new feature does have its bonuses, of course. Being able to filter your videos is nice, and your micro movies can be 15 seconds long, which increases your artistic or storytelling options.

Plus, as it's an addition to an established app, you already have a captive audience. Just ask yourself first whether that audience is ready for your Oscar-worthy efforts.

Video: Explicit language warning