Social networking sites like News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace and Facebook and online video companies like Google’s (GOOG) YouTube are all the rage these days. So it stands to reason that a company that marries the best of both social networking and online video should do reasonably well.

Meet Paltalk, a privately held company based in New York that unveiled a new product called Screening Rooms on Monday. Paltalk has developed a real-time online video chat service, something that the company likes to call “socialcasting.” The company already has agreements with several entertainers, most notably XM (XMSR) shock jocks Opie and Anthony, to let users watch live video streams of Opie and Anthony in their studio while they broadcast their show.

The Screening Rooms are the latest extension of this technology. With Screening Rooms, users can create public or private rooms where people can go to watch videos simultaneously. People can also interact with each other via text, video or voice messaging. In a sense, it’s like IM on steroids.

Jason Katz, the founder and CEO of Paltalk walked me through a demo of Screening Rooms and its updated PaltalkScene instant messaging product, which is interoperable with both Yahoo’s (YHOO) messenger product as well as AOL’s popular AIM. AOL, like CNNMoney.com, is owned by Time Warner (TWX), earlier this month at the company’s offices.

The real-time aspect is pretty interesting. Being able to watch a video at the same time as all of your friends is intriguing, particularly if you’re looking to replicate the “Mystery Science Theater 3000″ experience of making snarky comments while watching it. (Readers of this blog should already know that I’m a dork and if you hadn’t figured that out already, my love for MST3K should be further proof.)

The company has distribution agreements with online video sites ManiaTV, Heavy and blip.tv to show content from those sites in various Paltalk rooms.  And Katz said that Paltalk has signed some ad deals in order to place ads along side, but not within, video streams. But Katz has a somewhat controversial notion. He intends to make most of his money from subscriptions.

Gasp! Fees? In the wild world of mostly free online video? Surely, he jests, right? Well, so far, Paltalk appears to have no problem getting users to pay. Katz said the company, which also has a free basic chat service, also offers premium services for about $15 a month or $60 a year for so-called “extreme” members.

And Paltalk, which has been around since 1998, now has more than 4 million active monthly users, many of whom pay subscriptions.

Paltalk certainly faces a lot of competition. And with more and more companies offering as much for free as possible, it’s not clear if people will keep paying for videos, even though the add-ons such as voice and video chat are not something easily available on sites like YouTube or MySpace.

But Katz said that running a site during the dot-com dog days taught him that you can’t rely on advertising.  He said the company is well-funded, with prominent private equity and venture capital firm Softbank backing it, and profitable. So he sees no reason to change what has worked so far.

“We made it through the downturn with a subscription model for video,” he said. “People have paid us consistently for a long time.”