Recent News and Updates
Yammer vs. Twitter
posted by McKenna @ December 12th, 2008
A colleague and I recently argued over the best way to micro-blog. I had recently signed up for Yammer for work, but my friend claimed that Twitter was perfectly fine for both personal and professional use.
Then two coworkers looked at us like we were, well, pointlessly twittering and yammering. And I realized that our argument was relevant only if our coworkers – and our vendors, clients and bosses – knew what we were talking about.
In case you have been too busy updating your Facebook status working, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows you to send and read other users’ updates (a.k.a., tweets), which are text-based posts limited to 140 characters. It encompasses a huge audience: Twitter had a fivefold increase in visitors during September 2008, increasing its users to 5 million.
On the other hand, there’s Yammer – Twitter for the workplace. The company launched in September 2008, and more than 70,000 people have already signed up for accounts. Proponents like Yammer because it generally contains less frivolous information than Twitter, and can help coworkers keep up with important, ever-changing conversations.
So, what do you think: Is Yammer better for the office? Or is Twitter OK? If you have these accounts, how often do you update them? Or is all of this a moot point because both systems are useless?
Let us know what you think.
Bookmark this article!
4 Responses to “Yammer vs. Twitter”
Leave a Reply
Bookmarks
December 15th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Twitter is good because it allows you to make contacts with people outside of your company. You can’t connect with new business partners or prospect clients if you’re stuck solely within one specific company.
December 15th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Yes, Twitter is absolutely great for networking outside your office and everywhere else.
But isn’t it better to have one account set up for in-office networking and one set up for out-of-office stuff?
Do you really want your coworkers knowing that you are, say, networking with a competing company or refining your love of knitting apple jackets (http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=cat1_gallery_13&listing_id=18726395)?
Aren’t there some things on Twitter that just aren’t OK for the office?
December 15th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
well you couldn’t be networking with a competing company through yammer either though. there’s definitely some boundaries that you shouldn’t cross, and you may have to watch what you say, but social media is about being yourself. people aren’t interested in a corporate entity. they want to get to know the individual…
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:46 am
I think we shouldn’t merge one with the other. Yammer is obviously a place to talk about what you are working on. It is to be viewed and shared among colleagues. Twitter is for meeting people who have varied interests. Both are equally good as long as they are used in the right context.