USA TODAY International Edition
HOST YOUR OWN 2- WAY FACEBOOK LIVE TALK SHOW
2 new websites make it easy — and the price is right
LOS ANGELES Remember on Seinfeld when Kramer got the use of an old talk show set, became inspired and started doing a talk show from his living room?
Now everyone can be just like Kramer — except you don’t need a talk show set.
If you have an Internet connection and webcam, you can host your own talk show, with your Facebook friends as your guests, direct from anywhere.
With the Belive. TV and Smiletime websites, you connect to your webcam, welcome in your guests and use the tools to go directly to Facebook Live.
Both sites are free. They’re similar, but here are some key differences:
uBelive. TV has room for you and two guests on screen, with the ability to schedule your shows in advance, announce them to your Facebook contacts and display their comments on screen, in larger display than you see in Facebook, as they come in. You need to be in front of a com- puter to host your show.
uSmiletime: You can bring in three guests, plus the host, and show off photos, GIFs, trending tweets and comments while you do your show. ( Belive says it will roll out inserting photos during the show soon.) An app for Apple devices, just out last week, lets you broadcast from the iPhone as well.
Broadcasting via computer has a big advantage: Your image won’t be shaky because you’re probably not holding onto the laptop or desktop. But the app is more versatile, giving you more places to go live.
Both companies have watermarks identifying the platform.
The idea is “to lower the barrier of entry for video and let anyone create a professional- looking show,” said Tzafrir Rehan, who co- founded Belive with Daniel Mayer.
With an online talk show, “everybody is one click away from taking part,” said Alex Kruglov, the former Hulu exec who founded Smiletime as a way for viewers to discuss their favorite TV shows online.
As Facebook began its push to go live, Kruglov repositioned Smiletime to embrace live, where “reinventing the talk show” made sense for programming.
You get your choice of different layouts with both Belive and Smi- letime — the classic CNN- style split- screen or other variants when you have more guests — like Belive’s roster of three TV set- like windows spread out across the screen.
Belive is based in Hafia, Israel, while Smiletime is in Culver City, Calif.
Denver- based author and speaker Joel Comm goes live on Belive weekly, interviewing other social media influencers or just talking to his audience.
He doesn’t make money with live yet but does it instead to promote his brand.
“It builds my audience,” he said, “and reinforces the other things I’m doing.”
The beauty of this type of talk show is that the public can chime in during the show, expressing their opinions via their voice and facial expressions.
While apps like Skype and Google Hangouts have long offered the ability for group chat among friends, tools like Belive and Smiletime are the only ways we’ve discovered to put live group chats directly on Facebook Live, for free.
Ecamm Live software offers a way to talk the audience on Facebook Live, insert photos and share your screen with the audience, but you can’t bring in guests. And it costs $ 29.99.
Facebook isn’t the only live game in town. Twitter and YouTube are now pushing live as well.
While Belive and Smiletime say they’d like to expand, both say they’re focusing on Facebook for now.
How will they make money? Belive looks to add premium features, and Smiletime is hoping for sponsorships.
It’s not all smooth. Comm, the Denver author, found that despite it being so easy to connect, getting viewers to go beyond typing in comments is a struggle.
“People are shy,” he said. “Some are concerned about how their hair looks; they’re afraid they’ll screw up.”