Twitter’s Vine expands video on web

Twitter’s video service Vine announced Friday it was expanding its presence on the Web, giving users the option of watching full-screen clips on their personal computers.

The new service allows members to watch sequences of videos and use a full computer screen for viewing.

While Vine began as a mobile app for sharing short videos from smartphones, the new service gives more options to PC users.

Twitter bought the small team at Vine, a startup based in New York, in October 2012, prompting talk the messaging service intended to do for smartphone video what Instagram did for pictures.

“Today, we’re introducing a new way to experience Vine: on the web,” said a blog post from engineer Janessa Det.

“Log in at vine.co to view your home feed and like, comment, and share videos just as you do on our mobile apps. You can also visit your favorite users’ Vine profiles to browse the videos they’ve created since joining Vine. Plus, now you can share your profile with others so they can see your posts.

Det said Vine added a TV mode “to view the collection of videos in sequence and in full screen mode.”

“This release is just a first step toward bringing you a richer, more enjoyable web experience. We look forward to introducing more improvements in 2014,” she added.

Vine, which was one of the fastest-growing apps when it was launched, said in August its registered users had hit 40 million.