Upon first look Yammer, developed by Geni, looked like an exact duplicate of Twitter, but instead it turned out to be an Enterprise version. From their Crunchbase profile:
Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you working on?”
As employees answer that question, a feed is created in one central location enabling co-workers to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions, and share links and other information. Yammer also serves as a company directory in which every employee has a profile and as a knowledge base where past conversations can be easily accessed and referenced.
Anyone in a company can start their Yammer network and begin inviting colleagues. The privacy of each network is ensured by limiting access to those with a valid company email address. The basic Yammer service is free. Companies can pay to claim and administer their networks.
Now while the current UI does follow closely to that of Twitter, they have added some additional features. You have to use your company email to join your companies private network. This keeps people who do not work for your company out. Just like Twitter, you can use tags (#) to follow conversations on certain topics. There is keyword searching as well as the ability to view a tag cloud.
They are launching with a desktop app, iPhone app (with company directory), Blackberry app, SMS messaging, and IM messaging. Using Yammer is free, but they do have additional admin features the company can pay to add.
Overall, I think that it is a great idea. People love using Twitter and now companies have access to the same abilities, but in a private setting.
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