Twitter to shut down Vine

Twitter has announced it will shut down its video service Vine amid competition from Snapchat and Instagram.

"Since 2013, millions of people have turned to Vine to laugh at loops and see creativity unfold. Today, we are sharing the news that in the coming months we’ll be discontinuing the mobile app," the company said in a blog post.

Earlier yesterday Twitter revealed it would cut its global workforce by nine percent as the social network's growth had slowed.

The Vine app allowed users to create six second videos that were played on a loop.

The service was very popular when it was first launched in 2013 but has since been overtaken by the short videos of Snapchat and Instagram.

Vine said users would be notified before any changes were made to the app or website.

At this stage it remain unclear if Twitter will adopt features similar to Vine or if the idea will be junked entirely.