Yammer is Twitter for Businesses
As Twitter gains in popularity many are starting to realize the communication benefits it can provide. Everything you twitter, unless it is a Direct Message, is instantly discoverable by everyone as it is public.
A site that debuted this year is Yammer which is essentially a business version of Twitter. I over simplify it as it has many useful administration functions.
Most importantly it is private, or at least limited to your company. To join you must have a company email address, and honestly it will work for any group of individuals with the same email address, such as @xyz.com.
There is a cost involved, but it is a nominal $1 per employee per month. When you sign up as the company administrator you have access to all the administration tools. The tools allow you to customize it, restrict access, delete members, remove messages, and more privileges.
Just like Twitter, there are applications to receive the messages on your iPhone, Blackberry, a desktop application, and of course in the browser.
Here is a quote from a company using Yammer.
“Yammer gives us the ability to communicate in real-time with our entire team in NY, LA, and San Francisco. We’re able to share more raw information, which has already increased our internal efficiency quite significantly. It’s been good for brainstorming as well; I can post a question and get immediate thoughts, ideas and feedback. Yammer makes information sharing fun.” – Frank Addante, Rubicon Project CEO
The instant communication can be incredibly useful, the ability to message a group within your company instantly and effortlessly, regardless of location is amazing.
Comment by Ryan @ Linkbuildr on 28 November 2008 :
Hey Brian!
I’ve been reading more and more about Yammer and I really like the idea. I’ve been working on a project with a couple people over a distance and I’ve been in need of a simple tool like this to organize our efforts. I imagine since there is a $1 cost there won’t be any ads within the system?