Different situations call for different tools, and there are plenty of communications that I want my entire team to see, but not post to the world on Twitter. Yammer has filled that niche nicely.

Thanks for including Yammer in the article! We really appreciate it and just want to add some additional comments:

Yammer integrates with Twitter and other social networks in various ways. Read here:

http://blog.yammer.com/blog/2009/03/yammer-integrates-with-twitter.html

Check out Ping.fm and AlertThingy as well. They’re applications enabling people to post a single status update simultaneously to multiple sites including Yammer, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Yammer also offers various ways to send and receive messages, seamlessly fitting into your existing work flow. Some are:

Desktop App
FireFox Extension
Blackberry App
iPhone App
Android App
Email
SMS
IM
Web Client
etc.

We really view Yammer and Twitter as complements to each other. Twitter is great for external or public communication. We even use Twitter for that purpose. Follow us here:

http://twitter.com/yammer_team

However, we would never use Twitter to communicate company sensitive information. Twitter is simply not secure enough. Reason being, Twitter was not developed as an Enterprise tool, but rather a Consumer tool.

Yammer ensures privacy by automatically partitioning networks based on email domain. Besides the added security, you’ll also be automatically funneled into the same network as your colleagues. On Twitter, you would have to actively follow all of your colleagues. Not to mention that you would need to know who they were first. Yammer has connected employees within global companies, whom would have never met if they weren’t automatically funneled into the same network, and helped them solve problems together. Yammer also enables you to create or join Groups within the network, but the network is what really connects employees, and it’s done automatically.

In regards to security, Yammer offers additional Admin tools to paying customers. Read about them here:

http://www.yammer.com/company/claim

Here are some helpful links to better understand the power of Yammer and exactly how it works:

Video Tour: http://www.yammer.com/company/tour
Product Overview PDF: http://www.yammer.com/company/resources
http://twitter.com/yammer_team/favourites

Once again, thanks for the mention and let us know if you have any additional questions, comments, or suggestions.

Thank you,

Keith McCarty
The Yammer Team

We have created our tool to unify much of your activity on the web into one place. You can integrate Twitter and Facebook status updates with your Socialcast updates, and you can find and share links from the web without ever having to log in. You can also install a Google Gadget in your Gmail inbox to keep tabs on what’s happening without having to log in every day.

Twitter is great, but it’s not private. Ultimately I think this is why there will be a clear need for enterprise-ready tools that serve the same function.