GoPro gearing up to share more of its users’ videos

For years, thrill seekers have worn GoPro video cameras to capture hair-raising skydiving, motorcycle racing and snowboarding footage from a first-person point of view. They’ve documented up-close and personal encounters with wildlife, even mounting the cameras on the back of a surfing pig and on the beak of a pelican learning to fly.

But much of that cool video footage has remained on customers’ cameras, or has been uploaded to a personal YouTube account and viewed by only a few friends and family. GoPro wants those videos to be shared with the world, and in the process, it hopes to become known as more than just a hardware maker.

After a decade in the camera business, GoPro is evolving into a media brand that harnesses the best of its user-generated material and makes it available for the public to watch free.

The spectacular popularity of GoPro videos on YouTube and elsewhere has made clear to GoPro executives the potential to expand far beyond rugged extreme-action hardware. “We realized our users were really creating magic,” said Adam Dornbusch, GoPro’s head of programming. “Through our channels, we’re able to share it.”

Sharing it is just the beginning. GoPro envisions a vast, always-on marketing campaign that takes content created by customers, distributes it and uses it to attract new buyers, who in turn share their own videos, in what the company calls a revenue-raising “virtuous cycle.”

GoPro also wants to keep Wall Street happy. Since its June IPO, GoPro’s stock has surged, but many analysts think the company needs more than just cameras to justify its massive $3-billion IPO market valuation.

Creating a media empire, if it ever becomes that, will take time. Revenue from GoPro’s media side now is tiny, although the company says it is monetizing its content through advertising and licensing. Hardware – including the company’s newest camera series, the Hero4 – will drive revenue and profit for years to come.

GoPro sold more than 3.8 million cameras last year, up from 2.3 million in 2012. Although its hardware success flies in the face of a downward trend for standalone camera sales, analysts wonder how long the company can keep the pace going and say at some point the camera market will become saturated.

A year ago, nearly all of the short-form videos seen across GoPro’s media offerings were produced by its in-house GoPro Original Productions. Now, half of its videos are user-generated, and executives expect that proportion to grow.

Choosing which videos will appear on GoPro’s channels is handled by its team of creative editors, who scour the Web for compelling GoPro users and content and connect with creators to sharpen the vision. Other times, GoPro users contact the company to say they captured great material and offer to send it in.

Thanks to a revenue-sharing program rolled out in April, video-makers who allow GoPro to use their content get $1,000 for every million YouTube views their videos receive.

Those incentives will become even sweeter next year as GoPro’s media ambitions grow, Dornbusch said. “We’re going to put our incentive program on steroids.”

This story was originally published October 8, 2014 at 9:14 PM.