Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire • Hacker News Board

Re: Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire

#21

Post by kjackson2012 » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 7:11 AM UTC

rorrr wrote: post #18

kunle wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They never took it seriously to begin with, and now that its clear that this is a serious market, they're too late. I wouldn't put it past them to invest additionally in GoPro (or some competitor). Separately - who are GoPro's competitors?

There are tons of GoPro competitors: Contour Contour+2, ContourRoam Sony Action Cam (HDR-AS10 and HDR-AS15) Polaroid XS7, XS20 and XS100 CamOne (camonetec.com) AEE BlackEye XTR (Magicam SD21) (www.aee.com/en/) Tachyon (tachyoninc.com) UnmannedTech FPV HD camera Tons of unknown asian brands like 808 #16 720p micro camera ($8 to $40).

There are competitors, but none of them are a threat. The Contour has some traction, and the Sony ActionCam is pretty decent spec-wise, but nothing compares to the GoPro HD3 Black edition: 120FPS @ 720p, 240FPS @ WVGA, and even 30FPS @ 2.7k. They are still a generation or two ahead of their competitors.

The only thing I wish the HD3 Black had was GPS so that you could geotag your videos. That's about the biggest missing piece to that camera, otherwise it would be perfect.

Re: Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire

#22

Post by ghaff » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 7:14 AM UTC

sk5t wrote: post #8

What prevents a serious camera company like Nikon or Canon from rolling and and owning this market? Is a couple $bn not enough to get them out of bed in the morning?

The funny thing is that Canon, in particular, pretty much stumbled into pro/prosumer video and has done very well with it. Whether it causes itself harm by starting to try to deliberately segment its video and stills/prosumer video market remains to be seen.

But, yeah, they weren't aiming for the sports video market and they don't especially have a brand there. Actually, neither Nikon nor Canon have an especial brand in even waterproof cameras. (Canon does have one--only recently updated--Nikon AFAIK does not.) The point about getting out of bed in the morning is probably relevant. You get to a certain size of company and even large niches aren't especially interesting.

Re: Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire

#23

Post by kjackson2012 » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 7:18 AM UTC

I've used GoPros a few times on road trips, and they are fantastic.

I did a time lapse of 5 days driving through the South-West on one occasion, and new SLC on another, and the picture quality is great, and its time lapse functionality is really amazing. The only problem is that it generates a lot of data... I had to scale down from 1 pic per second to 1 pic every 10s, and I still had about 30GB of data. Anyone considering using the GoPro for time lapse, though, 1s frequency is what you want for a smooth video afterwards, 10s is too coarse and it gets really jumpy.

Re: Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire

#24

Post by kjackson2012 » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 7:26 AM UTC

sk5t wrote: post #8

What prevents a serious camera company like Nikon or Canon from rolling and and owning this market? Is a couple $bn not enough to get them out of bed in the morning?

It would require a serious investment to make a camera that would exceed GoPro in terms of quality and reliability, and then even more investment in marketing to get some sort of consumer mindshare. All of this for a market that is something like 5-10% of their point and shoot market. It's the type of gamble most companies aren't willing to make.

Re: Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire

#25

Post by aresant » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 8:50 AM UTC

Prior to inventing GoPro Nick Woodman had a full on, VC funded bubble startup in 2000 called "FunBug". (1) (2)

FunBug was "designed to drive consumer traffic and spending to online and offline client businesses" via games & sweepstakes.

His FunBug co-founder, Stephen Baumer, is the current CTO of GoPro.

Woodman credits FunBug's failure as partial inspiration for GoPro in that he wanted to pursue something he was genuinely passionate about.

So what?

Don't give up on the dream, fail fast and fail big, keep your best people close, and build stuff you wish existed.

Good stuff to think about with the new year around the corner.

1 - http://www.dmnews.com/funbugcom-looks-to-infest-the-net/arti...

2 - http://web.archive.org/web/20001017210942/http://www.funbug....

Re: Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire

#26

Post by gojomo » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 9:18 AM UTC

sandieman wrote: post #14

Does anyone remember flipcam?

For reference: Cisco bought Pure Digital, an SF-based startup that created the Flip camera line, for $590 million in 2009, only to shut them down completely 2 years later:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/technology/13flip.html

That episode may be more a reflection on Cisco's confusion than anything wrong with the original product/market. (Perhaps with a less neglectful acquirer, Flip would have been a worthy competitor to GoPro.)

Re: Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire

#27

Post by jrockway » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 9:21 AM UTC

flyinglizard wrote: post #9

Digital consumer video cameras predated GoPro by more than a decade, and the market was split between electronics giants. You wouldn't bet on a billion dollar company emerging from nowhere in THAT market, would you? But, apparently, when you build a great brand, find a solid niche and make something consumers WANT to buy - as opposed to need to buy - great things can happen.

find a solid niche and make something consumers WANT to buy - as opposed to need to buy - great things can happen

I don't understand this comment. The food and pharmaceutical industries seem to be doing just fine, even though food and medicine are things that people need to buy.

Re: Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire

#28

Post by Kliment » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 9:32 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #27

flyinglizard wrote: post #9

Digital consumer video cameras predated GoPro by more than a decade, and the market was split between electronics giants. You wouldn't bet on a billion dollar company emerging from nowhere in THAT market, would you? But, apparently, when you build a great brand, find a solid niche and make something consumers WANT to buy - as opposed to need to buy - great things can happen.

find a solid niche and make something consumers WANT to buy - as opposed to need to buy - great things can happen I don't understand this comment. The food and pharmaceutical industries seem to be doing just fine, even though food and medicine are things that people need to buy.

But nobody loves them

Re: Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire

#29

Post by nakedrobot2 » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 9:36 AM UTC

Congratulations to Gopro. They basically created the market of action cams. The dinosaurs Sony, Nikon, Canon are seeing their hegemony erode because of the incredible vision and product design of Gopro.

One interesting thing is that we are seeing a huge amount of "fisheye" videos now because of Gopro. Where it was once an extremely gimmicky kind of image, now it is becoming much more normal to see. And in certain situations (surfing, skiing) it really makes sense.

Re: Foxconn Buys Stake In Camera Maker GoPro, Turning Founder Into A Billionaire

#30

Post by dharma1 » Sat, Dec 22, 2012, 9:41 AM UTC

GoPro and RED are definitely shaking things up in the camera business. The japanese companies are just too slow/old school to keep up.

Both also uniquely have excellent proprietary video codecs - RED has http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDCODE and GoPro acquired http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CineForm

AFAIK GoPro 3 is using Sony sensors, yet Sony can't seem to get it's act together to produce a decent GoPro competitor (ActionCam).

My money long term is on high quality sensors from Sony etc. running on Android, and h.265 for higher resolutions/framerates rivaling offerings from GoPro and RED. Give it 1-2 years.