The news comes from an interview GoPro founder and CEO Nick Woodman gave with Variety, which adds a few details that make the move seem slightly less crazy. After all, the company has seen plenty of success from its viral video one-offs, so why not double down with a series of videos that can showcase “multi-episode narrative storytelling”? The company will have a rough road in front of it: In addition to losing money for the past three quarters, GoPro knows that a pivot to media will take years to pay off. From GoPro president Tony Bates: Other plans include building GoPro-integrated software that access the internet and can recognize other GoPros in the area, in order to help easily create a multi-camera video. There’s no avoiding that 2017 will be the deciding year: If GoPro can’t pull off their media networking plans, they’ll have to start looking to get bought.
Video Overload
Let’s just recap the previous entries in what has turned into my “Video News” series: In the last few months, YouTube added livestreaming, LinkedIn added video responses, Facebook added 360-degree videos, YouTube turned into a social media platform, Vine expanded its six-second limit to 140 seconds, and Tumblr added a focus on video, too. Yup, video is indeed eating the internet.
