I recently attended the Podcasting session at BloggerCon III and was amazed at how much inertia there seemed to be behind the Podcasting craze. At first, I was quite skeptical about podcasting, likening it to being forced to listen to a phone conversation while being muted, but over the last few days it’s truly come to grow on me.

As my interest peaked, I started to wonder what I could do to contribute to the movement and how I could squeeze my voice into the mix. My initial thoughts were to simply do an audio version of SocialTwister.com. I was originally planning to enlist a buddy of mine, whom I often talk about various issues relating to the site.

Then it hit me. I thought more about the way I came to form many opinions and it involved discussion with my friends. I had previously joked about recording our conversations and now it seemed quite reasonable to try it.

Beercasting was born. The premise is simple: Put a bunch of people together, add some spirits, and conversation flows in every which direction (some great, others bizarre). In short, the best conversations form in the froth of a frosty mug. I’ve outlined some of the notes for how to do one here below.

BeerCasting Guidelines

1. Topics automatically rotate when a new beer (wine, drink, etc.) is ordered
2. Anyone can speak at any time, the loudest one wins
3. Anything goes, there’s no filtering.

BeerCasting Recommendations

• Determine your topics ahead of time as a rough guide for things to hit when you are at a lull.
• Try to record your BeerCast on a Sunday through Wednesday – the other nights tend to get more crowded bars and lots of background noise.
• Try to keep the group size down to 4-5 maximum people – it’s hard to discern too many voices without really good equipment
• Designate one person to guide the discussion.
• Don’t stare at the mic – be natural or it won’t work

Soon, I’ll be launching the Beercasting.com web site for anyone to try publicize their own beercasts. There’s a bunch of neat little features planned that should make it a pretty interesting little experiment. Until then, send me links to any beercasts you do and I’ll publicize them.