Nope.

Anything can act as money. Money is simply an abstract concept that is applied to a representative item in order to make trade between differing products possible.

I cannot give someone oranges for his chicken eggs if he doesn't want oranges. A universally or at least widely-accepted medium must be used. Otherwise, a direct barter system is necessary.

As mentioned, anything would work to represent value; even ceramic cups. For simplicity, let's use dollars as they're familiar. When there are 10 dollars in an economy that has a hundred items for immediate trade, there are insufficient dollars to facilitate trade. Even if there were 100 dollars, that may not be enough because some items might be valued more highly than others. At least 100 dollars would be necessary to represent each item of value; more depending on negotiated value of the items.

Thus, there would be an increased demand for the medium of exchange, in our case dollars. If that demand is not met, the items will not be traded. This is one of the arguments used against gold as a currency, which does have some validity. Consider a situation where you might look to buy a pair of sandals. The sandals are $40 and you have a $50 bill. Should there be a shortage of currency, the business might not be able to provide you with the $10 in change you would expect after purchasing the $40 sandals with your $50. Would you be willing to take a $10 loss?

The store management might instead raise the price to $50. Eventually, that would displace values of other goods throughout the economy. Granted, it would be a slight displacement, but done with many items and by many participants, the aggregate changes add up and cause large-scale disruption. Then demand for the adopted currency increases.

It is a matter of convenience that drives the demand for a common currency. If it cannot be supplied sufficiently, trade will be put off until negotiated prices restabilize or alternatives are implemented, thus causing an overall slowdown in the interim. This has nothing to do with the economy itself, as that still retains its objective productive capacity. Instead, the economy's ability to function smoothly is hindered by lack of a fungible exchange method.

I've said this before, but I think it's worth repeating.  Growing the bitcoin economy is very simple.  Dedicate a portion of your earnings to buying bitcoin every week (however small that may be doesn't matter).  And never sell bitcoins on an exchange if you can possibly help it.  Instead, use those bitcoins to buy stuff (or pay people).  I think if everyone tried to do this, it would be the most effect way to grow bitcoin usage.  Trying to explicitly market bitcoin to people that may not know or care about it can backfire (but countering anti-bitcoin propaganda is important).

This is the fourth episode of the BitCoin Review podcast.  It was recorded on Friday, August 12, 2011 and released on Sunday, August 14, 2011.  This week’s guest is Ravinder Jagdev from RavzRadio.

Stories mentioned during the show:
http://www.tribbleagency.com/?p=8140
https://www.mtgox.com/press_release_20110811.html

Websites mentioned during the show:
http://flexcoin.com/
http://bitomat.pl/

-Carmen