In this day and age of vast technological advancements, it didn’t take long for online social networking, made popular by Myspace, and online broadcasting, made popular by YouTube, to come together to form a new means of mass communication. That is how NowLive was formed. The Calabasas-based company, which began operations in June 2006, has invented a new mass communications model called social broadcasting. NowLive enables people to host their own call-in show in a quick and easy fashion. “When we first built it we thought it would be a call-in show for live bloggers,” said Kevin Bromber, co-founder and CEO of NowLive. “We found it was also a great platform for masses of people to meet together it’s the evolution of chat online.” With something as simple as a telephone, users are able to create a radio-type show in which other users can call in and also send photos and text-chat, exceeding other user-generated content web sites, which only allow one or the other. Since going public on March 10 this year, the Web site gets an average of 100 live shows per day. “Even though we were developing not to the public, when we went up in beta, the growth has been astronomical,” Bromber said. With a vast array of social networking Web sites available to the public today, NowLive falls in the category of user-generated content. But Bromber feels NowLive stands out in a big way. “People are trying to broadcast themselves. We realized it’s not about putting a camera on one person, because it’s very difficult for one person to be entertaining,” he said. “The backbone of us is to get people participating.” Basically, the big difference between NowLive and other social networking sites is group participation. The idea for NowLive came from Bromber and his partners, who looked at the power of cell phones and then developed the technology to make online broadcasting possible. But the original program that was created had a few problems. “It was boring,” Bromber said. The problem was that when users sent in pictures, they were not sure whether it was received or if people saw it and appreciated it. That’s when Bromber and his partners came up with the idea of turning ordinary people into field reporters for a show. When users would take pictures of something, those pictures would be sent somewhere, like a news show. What was created was a makeshift radio show that would receive pictures from people. “When we advertised, we got hundreds of responses,” Bromber said. “People need a platform to form their own live broadcast, call-in show blogger.” One person who took that opportunity was Matthew Zachary, host of The Stupid Cancer Show. Zachary’s live weekly show focuses on topics revolving around young adults affected by cancer. Being a cancer survivor himself, Zachary uses other social networking web sites like Myspace, del.icio.us, LinkedIn and Facebook to connect with other people. But with NowLive, Zachary is able to connect with people on a different level by engaging in dialogue. And it wasn’t so hard either. “I think [NowLive] really provides the tools to make it pretty easy,” he said. “You just have to come to the table with some understanding of broadcasting.” The easiest part of starting his show was attracting listeners. This is mainly due to the fact that his I’m Too Young For This Cancer Foundation already has a large following. The hardest parts of maintaining a good show, according to Zachary, are figuring out the show’s format, recruiting guests, learning the ropes of avoiding dead air time and filling time with engaging dialogue. Since going live on May 28 this year, Zachary’s show averages 100 listeners per show with more than 100 subscribers to the podcast. “I think they’re really pioneers in technology,” Zachary said of NowLive. Like all good pioneers, NowLive has many plans for the future. “We have the ability to do streaming live video now, but not until we have the ability to make it more than just a live video chat,” Bromber said. “Live stream video is in the works, not just from home, but also from the field.” Most important is the fact that live video chats must be able to take in live call-ins using any device. “I think that our platform is the foundation for many different things that will spawn from this.”