Bloomberg reports that GoPro bought two mobile video editing companies, Stupeflix and Vemory, for a combined $105 million. What I found most interesting is what CEO Nick Woodman wrote about how users edit video. Namely:
We recognize that the future is not hunkering out at your desktop for four to five hours on a Sunday evening to edit whatever interesting content you captured over the weekend…The future is weaving a content creation experience into people’s everyday life flow — GoPro needs become much more contemporary.
It’s fascinating how there has been such a sea change in how people produce media on their mobile devices, and not just consume it there. As I wrote two weeks ago, phones are now good enough to shoot magazine spreads, and so video is, I suppose, no surprise.
GoPro’s acquisition does, of course, raise a fundamental question about the sustainability of the brand’s own hardware line. Namely, if users will now be editing ski videos on their phones, how long will it be before they simply resort to using their iPhone’s camera? Then again, perhaps GoPro might be best served by creating a whole vertical of extreme sports mobile products – cameras, editing software, shockproof phone cases, and online video platforms – rather than banking principally on its signature cube. And these acquisitions may be that start.
