Another year, another Parsec Awards a lot of hard work to recognize all the hard work the Speculative Fiction podcasting authors put into their craft. So stop in if you have a favorite podcast and help them get the recognition they deserve.

Today the Craft Brewing industry is meeting in Boston, you can follow the events if you search #cbc09. More than 200 breweries have jumped on to Twitter at last count. Neal Stewart of Flying Dog Brewery just posted "I feel safe in saying that there isn't another industry that has embraced twitter as much as CRAFT beer" and frankly he's right. But why?

I think part of it is because Twitter works best when it's from passionate people, something brewers have in spades. It shows in most of their tweets as well.

Second it's permission based, you only hear about those beers/breweries you have an interest in. It means if you are following @21Amendment you probably care about what is going on there. It allows them to connect with their customers on a very personal level.

Last it's a medium that doesn't take a large amount of effort for positive results back. A blog post takes some time and thought, maybe even some research. Having a conversation through twitter is far less demanding and means you can engage it while doing other work.

It does have it's challenges I recently spoke with a brewer who was unsure how much exactly he should post on Twitter. Should he post OGs, strike temperatures and other brewing data or was it overkill? I gave my opinion, but obviously there is no right or wrong answer. In the end if it's done with the same love he puts into his beer I think he'll have the right answer.