Maybe all of you Vine users noticed an alert on your respective mobile devices, but for those of you who haven't (or don't have the app yet), Vine released an update that allows you to embed your videos on the web. Before the update, users were only given the option to share their videos on Twitter and Facebook, but now you can post your videos virtually anywhere, which can only mean that we'll be seeing a lot more of Vine in the near future.

If you don't know what Vine is, it's a mobile app that allows you to create and post 6-second long video clips. It has been described as the "Instagram of video," and its length restriction is reminiscent of Twitter's 140 character limit -- which seems appropriate since it was acquired by Twitter last October. Here's an example of the types of videos you can make on Vine:

According to Vine's blog, the option to share will not only be available for your personal posts, but also those of other users, given that they have already shared it themselves outside of the app. Vine had this to say about the update:

When we launched Vine, we described posts as "little windows into the people, settings, ideas and objects that make up your life". With today's update, you can display them almost anywhere.

Before the update, it seemed, at least to me, that these videos were kind of isolated. Yeah, you could post them to Facebook or Twitter, but it didn't have the embedding capabilities of -- say -- YouTube, which is a huge factor in what makes videos go viral. And what could Vine do for the independent film community anyway, even with the update? These videos are 6 seconds, so what major contribution could Vine make in the indie world? Well, a recent post by RJMetrics revealed a lot of interesting data about Vine's first month, and found that although Vine was much more popular than its competitors, Viddy and Socialcam, the market for video sharing is still new and underdeveloped.

However, the fact that I personally have had all three of these apps on my phone at one time or another (Vine being the most recent) proves that there is definitely a desire to share videos among filmmakers (even if it's just me). There is a market out there for video sharing, but we're not quite there yet.

Vine is inching closer and closer to maturity as a video sharing app, and now with this added muscle it can proliferate the views on your videos faster and to a wider audience than it did before. And it's proving to be a major creative outlet for many artists, filmmakers, or anyone with a smartphone. Just to name one, actor Adam Goldberg has over 40,000 followers on Vine (check out his 5 part series about him being in Merritt's room). It's being used in so many other creative ways,  like advertising, promotions, behind-the-scenes, and sneak-peeks at upcoming movies like Wolverine. Tribeca is even getting in on the action with their #6SecFilms Vine Competition.

Being able to embed our Vine videos is a great new capability, and with the ingenuity and creativity of some of the vinematographers (that's what I'm calling us), I'm sure we'll be seeing many more amazing 6 second videos. And getting people to agree to watch yours once they know it exists may prove to be a little easier, because -- who doesn't have 6 seconds?

What do you think of Vine and its contribution (if any) to independent filmmaking and video sharing?

Link: Vine App -- iTunes

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