Vine creates searchable video archive after social network shut down

After shutting down social networking features last week, Vine on Friday made good on a promise to activate what it calls the Vine Archive, an online browsable repository of all user content created during the service's four-year run.

Announced in a post to Vine's official Medium page, the Vine Archive is now open to aficionados of the now dead looping video service.

Available through Vine.co, the online repository is in some ways an analog of the defunct video sharing social network. Similar to the original app, visitors to Vine.co can view popular memes and content organized by categories including animals, art, sports, edits and "weird." The site also features curated highlights from each of Vine's four years of service.

Of interest to fans, the website allows visitors to look up user profiles, keeping intact one of Vine's main content consumption features. Previous users who do not wish to be part of the archive must sign in to the website and manually delete their account.

Faced with increased competition from Snap and dwindling monthly users, Twitter announced plans to shutter Vine in October as part of restructuring efforts. The company later said it would transition the social network into a standalone camera app that lets users capture six-second looping videos for their own edification.

Earlier this week, Twitter integrated Vine's video looping technology into its flagship microblogging service. The change, which automatically loops uploaded content, applies only to videos with runtimes of 6.5 seconds or less.