A blue ticking off for Twitter's new app

When Twitter unveiled its latest social-media app, Vine, last week, industry observers wondered what potential it would have for enhancing our lives.

The programme, which allows users to upload crudely edited six-second video clips and share them on Twitter had the potential to make sharing videos – of anything from Arab revolutions to police brutality to sporting celebrations – as easy as sending as tweet.

However, these optimists had forgotten the internet's third rule of new technology: "Have new sharing capabilities; will film images of own genitals." And, as sure as eggs is eggs, the first thing many early adopters did with Vine was fill Twitter's servers with short-form amateur pornography.

If you're down with that (and many aren't, obviously), then no biggie. But the early bad-PR surge wasn't helped by a six-second clip of hardcore bongo being highlighted as an editor's pick on Vine's homepage. A "human error," Twitter grovelled a few hours later.

Of course, given the number of famous Twitter users posting explicit pics of themselves by accident, the countdown to Vine's first celebrity contributor to this new subculture is already on. Presumably between randy US congressmen and several squads' worth of British footballers.