Rickroll breaks Twitter Vine's 6-second limit

Not even Twitter's Vine is immune to the charms of Rickrolling, the Internet meme involving singer Rick Astley's song "Never Gonna Give You Up."

 

On Tuesday (PHL time), a 16-year-old Web developer appeared to break Vine's six-second limit for videos, managing to squeeze in the full three-minute video, The Verge reported.

 

"I think I broke Vine," the teenager with the handle "Will Smidlein" tweeted - along with the embedded video:

 

According to tech site Mashable, the incident occurred on the same day Vine released its Android app.

 

"Now available in the Google Play Store, it runs on all Android devices running version 4.0 and higher," it said.

 

The Verge said Twitter took down the video, but not before it went viral.

 

Vine, Twitter's video component, has a six-second limit for videos uploaded by users.

 

 

 

 

The Verge said Smidlein had claimed Twitter engineers directly messaged him and asked him to take down the video (http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/3/4393094/mad-genius-rickrolls-and-crashes-vine-with-full-length-music-video).

 

It said Smidlein later said he decompiled the newly released Twitter app for Android, and recreated parts of the Vine API that allow users to create posts.

 

"From there, Smidlein downloaded the 'Never Gonna Give You Up' music video. Using methods he declined to describe until the Vine app is patched, he posted the file to the app's servers. And suddenly, the six-second video app was hosting an infinitely looping, three-and-a-half-minute Astley classic," The Verge said.

 

He said he never expected the post to go viral, saying he meant it only for his friends.

 

Smidlein also apologized for the stunt:

 

 

On the other hand, The Verge noted a TechCrunch report indicating a blogger had earlier described a technique to get around the limitation. — TJD, GMA News