Chat?

[Dan]

I saw that Ning has a chat at the bottom. I hang around various IRC channels all day anyway, so if we wanted to actually have a realtime discussion, I'd love to have a room we could all congregate in. (Mibbit is a web-based IRC client, so people who aren't as geeky as I am could get by without downloading anything.

Plus, as I hinted at in the Conference thread, it would be INFINITELY better suited to host group tasting events than Twitter.

[The Beer Babe]

Agreed. I was thinking that maybe we could schedule "meetings" on the chat to talk about specific things.

[Chipper Dave]

Agreed. Twitter is way too confusing to host a decent chat. Set up a regular chat time (1-2 times a week) and BYO favorite beer and let's talk beer and whatever else.

[Dan]

Would there be anyone agreeable to/horribly against using IRC instead? I don't want to push 'my format' on people but it's a pain to have a second window open and remember to check it (I missed Two Beer Queers this morning). The way I see it, if people have to click a web link then which one specifically doesn't matter; on the other hand (I tend to Devil's Advocate my way out of winning arguments a lot ;)) people might be more inclined to click the link at the bottom that says 'X people are in chat now' (DA to the DA being that it doesn't mean people are actually in the chat).

I made an IRC channel, just because hey it took two seconds even if we decide not to use it, and here's the web link if people want to try it out: http://icanhaz.com/beerbloggerschat

[The Beer Babe]

I'm willing to try whatever works for people. It might be good to create an environment like that especially if we have scheduled chats or meetings ;)

Dan said:

Would there be anyone agreeable to/horribly against using IRC instead? I don't want to push 'my format' on people but it's a pain to have a second window open and remember to check it (I missed Two Beer Queers this morning). The way I see it, if people have to click a web link then which one specifically doesn't matter; on the other hand (I tend to Devil's Advocate my way out of winning arguments a lot ;)) people might be more inclined to click the link at the bottom that says 'X people are in chat now' (DA to the DA being that it doesn't mean people are actually in the chat).

I made an IRC channel, just because hey it took two seconds even if we decide not to use it, and here's the web link if people want to try it out: http://icanhaz.com/beerbloggerschat

[Barry M]

I used to use IRC a lot, but it was many moons ago. The only potential issue is the international nature of the group, so timing would be difficult. But in principle, it's a good idea and cleaner than Twitter.