Company communication improvement: Yammer and Present.ly

YAMMER

The Solution to Email Overload
In 2007, The New York Times described email as "a $650 Billion Drag on the Economy", and it's easy to see why: email inboxes are overflowing with messages tangentially relevant to the people addressed. Meanwhile, those who should see the information are omitted.
Yammer is an enterprise productivity solution that uses a publish-and-subscribe model to improve communication while reducing email overload. Yammer allows you and your employees to:

• Publish status updates, ideas, news, links, and questions without cluttering up inboxes.
• Subscribe to the people and topics that are relevant to you.
• Reply to status updates and have discussions.
• See what people are actually working on and talking about.
• Search archived messages as a knowledge-base.
• Find people in the directory to contact them or learn more about them.

GOOD

• no restriction on number of characters used
• auto fill tags (for faster typing & consistency)
• daily digest per email
• no limit on number of users

NOT SO GOOD

• slow loading time (at least slower than present.ly)
• no attachments
• mobile: only blackberry and iphone are supported

COULD BE GOOD - COULD BE NOT SO GOOD

Members of a group should be from the same e-mail domain

PRESENT.LY

Present.ly is a communication platform that, like Twitter, is designed to allow for short, frequent updates to be posted by individuals and tracked or "followed" by others. Unlike Twitter, however, Present.ly provides a secure and private way to share updates among members of a company without it being visible to the outside world.
Many times a problem that one person in a company experiences may have already been experienced and solved by another. Present.ly gives you the ability to tap the collective knowledge of your colleagues to find quick answers to difficult or time-consuming research tasks.
With Present.ly, it's easy to share images, documents, video, and audioclips with your colleagues. Whether you're looking for feedback on a new design mockup or sending out new policy documents for human resources, it's never been easier to rapidly share and communicate media in your company.
You don't always have a computer at the ready when you need to tell people what you're up to. Present.ly provides interfaces that let you keep in touch wherever you are. Use it from your computer, your mobile phone, or most any device capable of connecting to the internet.
Present.ly allows you to create groups and direct communication to and from those groups. Send messages only to members of a group or simply direct relevant news and information to the group for its information.

GOOD

• fast load times
• attachments are allowed
• excellent mobile application, for all platforms
• support for Twitter API
• elaborate email settings (but no daily digest in the free plan like Yammer )
• not only tags, but also groups for filtering

NOT SO GOOD

• 140 character restriction
• free plan is restricted to 5 users
• no autofill for tags (for faster typing & consistency)

COULD BE GOOD - COULD BE NOT SO GOOD

Members of a group are not limited to have the same e-mail domain

LINKS
Article Socialmediatoday: Enterprise Twitter heats up with Present.ly
NYT: Popularity or Income? Two Sites Fight It Out
Ross Dawson: Business models for micro-blogging in the enterprise
CO-OP: Co-op makes it easy to stay connected with your co-workers without disrupting them.
Articlebase: Tear Down That Firewall Mr. Corporate it
DIY microblog with Laconica: http://laconi.ca
An eLearning experience: Tweeting for business
Matt's Musings: Threats, risks and mitigation treatments for Twitter