1 million people now using the Hang w/ app for broadcasting live video

VENICE BEACH, Calif. - Anyone who's tried to do video chats with folks on Skype, Apple FaceTime or Google Hangouts knows the issues involved.

The other person has to register, accept your invite and eventually you'll connect.

Some 1 million people have found an easier way to do this, via the Hang w/ app, available for Apple and Android devices. home of live video broadcasting.

Download the app, and sign in with e-mail or Facebook, open it, start a broadcast, give it a title, and click record.

The video goes live, and can be archived as well.

Additionally, Hang w/ recently added live broadcasting for GoPro cameras as well, via the tiny action cam's Wifi.

The idea for Hang w/ came when founder and CEO Andrew Maltin became aware of the ever-increasing presence of celebrities in social media--much of it farmed out to their staffs. "With live video, you can't fake it," he says. "It's either real or it's not." His mission: "to make social media a little more authentic."

Maltin decided to get a name for Hang w/ by reaching to celebrities: investors include former NFL great Terrell Owens, rappers 50 Cent and Timbaland.

That paid off. Now he has over 1 million users, and they are "7 times" more likely to watch a video than click a like button on Facebook, he says, and 361 times more likely to watch than to retweet on Twitter.

Coming next for Hang w/: later this year, Maltin looks to add pay-per-view functionality to the app, so celebrities can hang with fans--and charge for hearing a song or having a chat.

Listen to the audio podcast with Maltin by clicking the link above.

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