Condé Nast Portfolio
Home > Views > Blogs > Tech Observer > Twitter-like Co. Wins Top TechCrunch50 Prize
EMAIL
PRINT
RSS
SHARE
TEXT SIZE:
SHARE
Send a copy to me

Separate multiple email addresses (max 20) with commas.

0/1500

Main
Time Warner Pessimistic About AOL's ...   Senate Committee Approves Controvers...
Sep 11 2008 4:22PM EDT

Twitter-like Co. Wins Top TechCrunch50 Prize

Sam Gustin notes: Yammer, which has been described as Twitter with a business model has won the top prize at the TechCrunch50 start-up conference.

Like Twitter, Yammer is a micro-blogging service, but instead of being designed for the general public, Yammer is designed for companies, as a way for employees to remain up-to-date with what their colleagues are doing.

Instead of asking the question: "What are you doing?" Yammer asks, "What are you working on?"

But unlike Twitter, Yammer has a business model. The service is free to employees, but companies pay to set up corporate accounts that give them the ability to manage their employees, remove users, and set passwords.

Yammer was originally designed by a company called Geni, as an in-house communications tool. It worked so well that the company went public with it.

"We were looking for a tool to keep our company connected. Something like an enterprise version of Twitter would have been ideal, but it didn't exist. So we built our own," said David Sacks, the founder of Geni and Yammer, in a release launching the service. "People get to use great consumer internet sites, like Facebook, Twitter, and Geni, to communicate in their personal lives. Then, when they get to the office, all the software is antiquated and hard to use -- that doesn't make sense. We want to do something about that."

Some 10,000 people and 2,000 organizations signed up for the service when it launched on Monday, according to TechCrunch. Conference organizers Michael Arrington and Jason Calacanis awarded Yammer $50,000 for taking the top spot at the conference.




Also on Portfolio.com:


Loading...
Add Your Comment
View
 

Thank you for registering as a Portfolio.com Insider. Your comment has been added.

Create Your Public Profile


Archive

Previous
Jul
2009
Next


Also in Portfolio.com
Most Read
Most Emailed
Recently Commented

Newsletter Sign-Up
Inside Portfolio.com
In This Issue
Subscribe
Newsletter Sign-Up
Inside Portfolio.com
In This Issue
Subscribe