Microsoft To Shut Down Disaster Communication Service Vine

It's ironic that Microsoft chose the day before the anniversary of the 9/11 disaster to announce the shuttering of Vine - the service was built to help people in exactly those types of situations. We first wrote about Vine in April 2009 - it was an ambitious new service to help keep friends and family in touch during emergencies:

Vine is designed to keep family and friends in touch when other communication methods are either broken or not particularly efficient. Times of crisis usually involve a breakdown in mobile phone or other key communication infrastructures, and Vine is designed to be as hardy as possible to keep people connected. Vine can be accessed via a desktop client (Windows only for now), text message or email.

Here's the email Microsoft sent out announcing the shutdown of the service on October 11:

LINEAR TECHNOLOGY LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL LEVEL 3 COMMUNICATIONS LAWSON SOFTWARE LAND SOFTWARE