Vine Hints at New Features As Facebook Gears Up For Potential Rival

As rumors spread that Facebook is gearing up to unveil its answer to Twitter's popular Vine application at a press event on Thursday, Vine is already going on the offensive by teasing some new features.

Vine co-founders Dom Hoffman and Rus Yusopov have taken to their personal Vine accounts to make some cryptic six-second videos to show off some new features and UI enhancements that are likely to be coming to the application soon.

Things are still unclear as to what they're planning. The Vine shorts in question, embedded below, are only hints of what people can probably expect from the application soon that might make it more appealing than a potential video sharing service from Facebook's Instagram.

TechCrunch reports the new features hinted in the 12 total seconds of video include the ability to make drafts of videos and save them for future use before sharing them. This would allow those who are making Vines that take a bit of time and constant starting and stopping to leave, do something else and take more Vines in the mean time before finally sharing a finished product. This feature will come as a welcome addition for those who are trying to use the six-second video service for the purpose of making long stop-motion animations or complicated videos that require a lot of time, for example, a time-lapse video.

There is also an apparent redesign of the video stream in which the camera button is moved to the bottom center of the screen where it remains as users slide through the stream. Vines would then pass down the stream with no breaks for comments or likes. This would mean users would have to tap on a single vine in order to share, like or comment on it.

The Verge believes the app will now contain category additions. Popular hashtags, at the moment, float to the top of the "Explore" page along with Editor's picks. This update could bring standardized categories such as Comedy, Technology, Art, etc.