Get ready to waste a whole lot more time on Twitter's Vine video creation and sharing tool.

The 6-second video creation app, a favorite of animators and artists, got a major update on Thursday, including an entire suite of new tools called Vine Messages.

Vine Messages is a new private messaging system that sits within the Vine App ecosystem. If you want to use it, you'll need to download the Vine 2.0 app from the App Store for iOS, or from Google's Play store for Android devices.

As soon as the update arrived, I took it for a test drive on my iPhone 5s. Here's what I found.

Getting started

Messaging is a big deal for the folks at Vine (and Twitter). To see that, you need only install the latest update, which includes a roadblock prompting you to try the new feature.

Image: Screenshot

Vine itself looks a bit different even without the new Message option. Note the new "Share" icon (below, left). This features now lets you reshare a favorite Vine to multiple contacts (below, right). Each one will get the same Vine and a text message (if you choose to include that) in their message inbox.

After that, you can continue separate conversations with each friend about that Vine. You can't continue a group Vine chat.

Image: Screenshot

Vine Messages is a new menu item found under the Home icon. Select it and you’re in your Vine Message Inbox, which defaults to messages from Friends view. Each friend is color-coded according to the profile color they chose (another new feature).

You can also receive video and text messages from those who aren’t your friends (people you don’t necessarily follow on Vine). Vine may ask you, as it asked me, to enter your mobile phone number. That's needed to verify your account before you can send a video or text message to a contact who is not following you.

Image: Screenshot

Anyone you’ve recently messaged appears in this section; the conversations with them stay put. The time of your last correspondence is noted on each avatar. The number of messages appear with a tiny numeral on top of the avatar. You'll also hear what sounds like a little raindrop each time you send or receive a message. If you have notifications turned on for Vine, you'll also see a little drop-down alert on top of your screen whenever a new message arrives.

Image: Screenshot

You can also access the inbox by swiping the home screen to the left.

Image: Screenshot

New Vine messages appear as video or text. You can record up to six seconds per message, just as you can with a regular Vine video. All the features of Vine are available here. You can respond with with either video or text, or both at once. When you prepare to send a Vine message, there’s the option to add a caption.

If you delete a Vine video message or text, it may not disappear from your recipients' phone if they've viewed it. In my experience, I could only delete sent messages on my end. Canceling message before they go though is easy.

Here, I sent a video message (below, left) and followed it with a text message (below right).

Image: Screenshot

Vine Messages also supports “Quick Reply.” To access this feature, just hold your finger on the video record icon. The camera will automatically switch to FaceTime or "selfie" mode, and start recording for up to 6 seconds. When you let go, the message is sent.

You can cancel the process by swiping your finger upwards — but if you don’t do it quickly enough, the message will go out and remain on your recipient’s phone, even if you delete it from your own.

Image: Screenshot

In short, Vine Messages is the single biggest update since Vine's introduction a little more than a year ago. It's more like a separate service stuffed inside the existing one. Now entire conversations and creations will be shared privately between Vine users. It's certainly much richer than Twitter's own Direct Message platform, and offers more creative possibilities than Instagram's direct messaging system.

The only question that remains: will it flourish like Snapchat, or fade into unused obscurity like Instagram DMs?