What’s Cool: The simplest way to describe Yammer is to call it a private Twitter network for your company or organization. Yammer only allows people with email addresses ending in your web domain to join your network, giving you a closed environment in which to discuss projects, share feedback, and give updates on your progress—all of which answers the question, “What’s happening at your company?”
Yammer facilitates communication and collaboration among the members of your team, and it’s ideal for people who are working on projects together. Yammer isn’t meant to replace face-to-face interaction or meetings, but regular updates from staff give everyone a good sense of each other’s status and can streamline meetings by doing away with the obligatory meeting-starter, “So, what’s everyone working on?”
Let’s be honest, we like that Yammer is free. We also like that it has a desktop application client, as opposed to functioning solely in a browser window (but that’s a personal preference). Speaking of free applications, the BlackBerry and iPhone versions of Yammer are also free, making it easy to stay in the loop while you’re away from your desk. The only cost associated with Yammer is if a company wishes to “claim” its users and be given administrative status to govern its company’s use of the service.
Overall, the service is reliable and functional, meaning you don’t have to be anxious about integrating it into your daily operations. Users have the opportunity to make Yammer even more useful by creating custom tags that can be searched later to track the progress and development of a specific idea or project. (For example, if your team members used the tag “#ProjectA” every time they posted an update about Project A, you could quickly view every post with that tag.) For the ambitious programmers out there, Yammer provides an API and invites third-party developers to create their own Yammer applications.
What’s Not: Yammer is yet another tool to keep up with, and we completely understand if you’ve already reached your networking/multi-tasking saturation point. An inherent weakness of Yammer is that its effectiveness is dependent upon an entire team buying into the tool and remembering to use it daily; otherwise, you’re sunk. Finally, if you’re not getting any work done, you won’t have much to say on Yammer, thus exposing your shirking. (It’s worth noting that none of these are actually Yammer’s fault, but they are very real challenges to successfully implementing the tool with your team.)
Bottom Line: It’s easy to see why Yammer recently took the top prize at the TechCrunch50 conference as the best startup at the conference. It’s a simple, (mostly) free service that is conducive to communication and accountability among team members.
Official Site: www.yammer.com
Our Rating: 