Not long ago, Dave Kozuki, chief executive officer of Manoa Innovation Center-based social media company PeopleBridge, was asked by a colleague to attend a two-day seminar he was organizing in San Antonio. It was important that Dave be there but travel expenses were a concern. Without skipping a beat, Kozuki told the man, "Why don’t you just webcast it?"

Once the domain of geeks and hard-core techies; webcasting has gone mainstream. With most companies like PeopleBridge watching their travel budgets, virtual meetings strike a chord.

The PeopleBridge executive says that that for his needs, webcasting is less about "talking heads" and more about sharing documents or even a whiteboard. "We can get our message communicated virtually with a webcast," says Dave, "so by attending a webinar or webcasting our own seminars and training sessions, travel becomes optional for staff and clients."

Don Mangiarelli, IT manager at Shidler Investment Corp., one of the largest office building owners in the state, concurs.

Don has set up conference rooms in every one of his company’s buildings, most of which have a 52-inch monitor and up to 30 megabytes of bandwidth. "Tenants are demanding that we can provide them with capability for virtual meetings — which means bandwidth and the tools to leverage it," says Mangiarelli.

He added, "Tenants can bring their web cameras and utilize a video service such as Skype, MSN, Google, Yahoo or more sophisticated systems from Polycom, Tandberg, Cisco and others."

Howard Hoddick, who works for Presentation Services, a Honolulu company that rents gear for large-scale webcasts of concerts or sports competitions such as triathlons, golf tournaments and surfing contests, says webcasts are growing in acceptance. Hoddick says in particular he’s seen "a real spike" in web-based broadcasts of sporting events that may not be big enough for a TV audience but still command a large following. Hoddick reckons that the Ironman Triathlon on the Big Island may have a worldwide viewership of 4 million to 6 million.

How fast is webcasting growing?

It’s hard to get precise numbers, but according to a Wikipedia article, webcasting has roughly doubled every year since 1995 and is directly linked to broadband penetration. Dave Kozuki of PeopleBridge says that his own company’s of use of webcasting has grown 50 percent during the past year.

So how do you get started?

"All you need," says Kozuki, "is a webcam, a computer and bandwidth. Webcasting on Skype and other services can be done easily and new technologies, such as front-mounted cameras on mobile phones such as Android, will afford would-be webcasters even more flexibility."