This week I decided to try do try out Yammer with my IT staff, a start-up service providing Twitter-like services at the enterprise level.
I’ve always been impressed by Twitter, not necessarily as a voyeuristic tool for keeping tabs on my friends, but for its ability to disseminate information fast. E-mail is limited, IM is too scattered and direct.
So far, it has been working out great. I find that I spend far less time repeating the same thing to users, and within a small group it even works to replace IM. I can see it getting a bit too crowded with any more than a group of 5-6 users, but for a small IT group I’m finding that it is working out very well.
It certainly helps that they made it easy to update and read– they provide a Firefox plug-in, desktop application and of course web and SMS just like Twitter.
I typically keep the desktop or Firefox client open when I’m at my desk, and if I’m away I get updated by SMS for people who message me directly (it also posts to the page for everyone to read). I also like that it threads conversations so that it’s not just a huge list of messages to read.
We’ll see how it plays out over the long run, but for now it’s a free and efficient way to blast out information. I don’t see Yammer replacing e-mail, phone or IM but it certainly is a another fast and efficient way to disperse information to the masses.