Vine co-founder Colin Kroll has died aged 34

Colin Kroll, co-founder of video service Vine and online quiz show HQ Trivia, has died in his New York apartment. Police say the cause of death appears to have been a drug overdose. Kroll was 34 years old.

Image via NYT – Getty Images for Variety

Kroll co-founded the video service Vine with Rus Yusupov in 2012. The site allowed users to upload videos of up to six seconds in length, which played in a loop. The idea of ​​such succinct content is reminiscent of Twitter, and the microblogging service acquired Vine in 2012, even before the service was opened to the public. In 2015, Vine had 200 million monthly users, but Twitter began shutting down Vine in 2016. A successor is in the works, but this one is not by Kroll and Yusupov, but by the third Vine founder Dom Hofmann.

Kroll worked at Twitter for a while after the acquisition, but left amid allegations of inappropriate behavior towards colleagues. This caused him some difficulties in finding investors for his next project. The New York Times spoke to Kroll’s father, who said the entrepreneur was “disturbed and hurt” by this turn of events. Kroll promised Axios that things would be different at his next venture.

HQ Trivia was Kroll and Yusupov’s next project. A live quiz that users can take on their smartphone and win cash prizes. Participants have ten seconds per question. The game show has its own host and, according to the App Store page, has incidentally famous hosts such as The Rock, Robert De Niro and Gordon Ramsay. The app is also available for Android. HQ Trivia has been online since 2017 and initially enjoyed considerable popularity, although that has since faded somewhat, writes Ars Technica.

His companion Yusupov says on Twitter that Kroll was a “kind soul with a big heart” and that he will be missed. A spokesperson for HQ Trivia also told The New York Times that they were saddened by the loss of their chief executive officer.