Just a year and a half from IPO, action cam maker GoPro finds itself a company in decline. Just ten months after launch, live-streaming app Periscope finds itself looking for ways to continue its explosive growth. Little wonder in either case, then, that they’ve decided to team up.
Starting now, Periscope users with a GoPro Hero4 camera can stream their adventures (or their soup, don’t let expectations define you!) live to the world. In fact, you can toggle between your iPhone camera and your GoPro with a single tap, giving you a small semblance of directorial control over the events unfolding around you.
The most obvious use case here is extreme sports, both because that’s where GoPro still shines, and because it already has an X Games collaboration lined up to coincide with its Periscope partnership. In fact, the tie-in also follows Twitter’s recent decision to put Periscope livestreams directly in the main Twitter timeline. That means you’ll be able to ogle sick 720s (is that good? it sounds like a lot) from a first-person point of view without leaving Twitter.
Another exciting use for both users and viewers, especially those who can neither complete nor spell even a simple “ollie,” is that GoPro cameras are popular picks for drone videography. Eyes in the sky can livestream remote vistas or protest crowds or anything, really, within federal regulatory standards (whenever we actually get those locked down).
The point being: GoPro gives Twitter (through Periscope) more than just words and pictures to tell every story. It gives it a live, unfiltered video feed from every possible angle. That’s powerful, especially for a social service that’s been struggling to attract new users, and keep the ones it has engaged. It also lets Periscope break out from its smartphone confines.
As for GoPro, it’s dabbled with livestreaming apps before; it announced a similar partnership with Meerkat last summer. But Periscope, which is owned by Twitter, gives it indirect access to Twitter’s 320 million monthly active users. And the more people see that its cameras can be used for more than just barrel rolls, the better chance GoPro has to reverse its sales decline.
The GoPro integration is iOS-only for now, and it should take some time for people to learn that GoPro livestreaming is an option and then to actually do it. At the very least, though, it should give your Twitter timeline a little lift.
