The last week thoroughly introduced us to Vine and, naturally, Vine porn. Now, as we continue our tumble down the rabbit hole, the Internet has seen fit to match the best of Vine with the power of Tumblr, thanks to Vineit. Face it Tumblrcore, Vine’s war on the GIF has reached a new height.
Vineit is a simple browser bookmarklet that allows you to lift Vine videos – both your own and those of complete strangers – from the Web and share them on Tumblr. It was developed by Dwolla developer evangelist Michael Schonfeld, the same coder behind the incredible InstaTwit Chrome extension that came after Instagram’s very public falling out with Twitter. All you have to do is drag the plugin to your bookmarks bar and click when you discover an eminently shareable Vine video. After a few clicks, it’s on Tumblr ready to reblog. Easy.
According to Schonfeld, the idea initially came up over drinks. “I was talking to one of [a friend’s] coworkers about Vine,” he said, “and we exchanged a few creative vines we had both found throughout the week. We both felt like there should be a ‘most creatives vines’ Tumblr. That’s when I realized there’s a missing link there.”
Vineit’s only limitation seems to be that it can’t detect embedded Vines from other sites, so you’ll need to go to the source link each time. However, trolling through third party sites like Vinepeek has turned into an even more addictive experience because you’re suddenly trapped trying to find the most interesting videos to share before the next clip comes along.
Tumblr, image-centric as it is, has long been the bastion for all things GIF. Seeing a union between the two could be… well, maybe not a game-changer, but it’s a nice addition. For Schonfeld’s part, he still sees GIFs as having certain “vintage” properties, like their being lightweight and easy to use, which might make them preferable to apps like Vine. Still, don’t be surprised if you do eventually see that “Best Vines” Tumblr. You’ll know exactly who and what to blame.
