I recently talked to execs from two companies that do exactly the same thing but in completely different ways. In one corner, Yammer, the 2008 TechCrunch50 darling. It's a Twitter-for-the-enterprise service that's hosted by Yammer. Any company can get its employees on to the service, but all the data is run through, and hosted by, Yammer itself.
In the other corner, Presently (found at Present.ly), another Twitter-for-the-enterprise product. Customers can use Presently in the cloud, just like Yammer, but the company makes its money from, and has most of its users on, its software that customers can install on their own networks, "inside the firewall," as they say.
Which is better? Dave Naffis, co-founder of Presently maker Intridea, told me that most of his customers are on the self-hosted version. "They try the SaaS (software as a service) version briefly then install the on-premises version. Over 70 percent of our customers are hosting internally," he says. Presently is installed at more than 50 companies, he claims.
Given what Naffis' customers are saying and paying for, it's understandable that he's going in the software direction. Just announced is a new self-install kit: Companies can sign up for free online and get a 30-day free trial license for the Linux version of the software (for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 or CentOS 5). There's a predictable, one-time license fee of $2,000 (for up to 1,000 users) with maintenance fees running 5 percent to 20 percent a year on top of that, depending on services needed.
Naffis does believe that, "Over time, customers will get more comfortable with data in the cloud." But, he says, "a lot of these large companies are not there yet. Maybe in three to five years."
So the Presently strategy is to sell companies an architecture they can get behind today and will presumably be there for them when they drop their objections to running a corporate communications system through a hosting service. But the company will have to wean its customers off the installed software and back to the hosted service, and there's no way that will be easy.
Yammer keeps getting better, but its critical advantage is its architectural philosophy.
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)Meanwhile, Yammer, which has more funding, has dropped its downloadable software strategy entirely. CEO David Sacks did tell me that early in the young company's life he heard the reservations of corporate IT guys about running a service like this off-site. His company announced that it would create a downloadable version of Yammer.
But over time, Sacks says, he came to believe that all his clients were all going to get with the program on cloud-based computing eventually. And, he says, Yammer-as-a-service started selling. The service costs $3 to $5 per user per month, depending on features needed.
Yammer has stopped work on the hosted version of the product and is now aligned completely around the SaaS service. Sacks cites a few Fortune 1000 customers using the product, like AMD. The market for his type of communications service is not as big as he wants it to be yet, but, he says, "It's big enough to support us today."
And, of course, Sacks is happy to rattle off the advantages of focusing on the service-based product model: No tedious and expensive upgrade distributions; no need to support legacy users who don't upgrade; the freedom to spend 100 percent of product development on one version of the product (and features for it); and the speed with which updates can be rolled out to customers.
Yammer has the strategic advantage in the hosted-vs-software model due to its deeper pockets (it raised $5 million in venture funds), which allows it to bet on the future instead of selling products based on today's architecture.
I didn't really like Yammer when it launched a year ago. In fact, I liked Presently a lot more and awarded it a special Webware 100 award in 2009. I felt Yammer was too spare. Since then, Yammer has added features (such as integration with Twitter), and rolled out more client apps, including one that embeds Yammer into enterprise e-mail client Outlook. It's a much better service now than it was when it launched.
I don't have enough information to judge the products on purely technical merits. Corporate customers will want to talk to Yammer and Presently reps themselves to see which service they're more comfortable with when it comes to scalability, reliability, and security.
Regardless of the feature comparisons, and even regardless of numbers of current customers, I give the strategic nod to Yammer, because it's not building for today's market, but tomorrow's, and it has the resources to wait it out. The whole enterprise Twitter space may collapse (if, for example, Twitter releases a strong business-focused service on its own), but if it does survive, over the long term, it looks like Yammer is better positioned to slide into the market that will be.
As a follow-up to its free, 50-user microblogging product, Socialtext is launching a new paid service for large to enterprise-sized companies that lets them run the Twitter-like service behind the firewall, and with many more users.
Companies that want it can pay $1 per user, per month, alongside a monthly fee that pays for Socialtext's server appliance. This hardware runs the microblogging software locally, and can be connected to a company's backup systems for if something goes wrong, although it makes nightly backups of its own. The appliance fee also covers monthly software updates that will fix bugs and add new features.
In a call with CNET News on Monday, Ross Mayfield who is Socialtext's chairman, president, and co-founder, said that the benefits of having a system like this locally can make a big difference when doing a fresh setup on a big company. "You turn it on, and in five minutes you can start posting right away."
Your company 'tweets' would go through this box.
(Credit: Socialtext)To speed things up, the appliance can be connected to local staff directories and pull in employee information to create user accounts that have profile information including phone numbers and e-mail address already filled out. Anytime local directory changes are made, this information gets updated in Socialtext too. Administrative control is also not limited to IT staff, since certain users can be graced with admin privileges of their own that let them moderate both user content and the users themselves.
Companies will still be able to use Socialtext's free 50-user version of the service that lives in the cloud, but this option gives larger companies a bigger user cap and more control over the data. Mayfield also pushed the fact that companies that wanted to tack on additional Socialtext services won't have to get any additional hardware since they'll already have it for this service.
Socialtext is undercutting competitors like Yammer in price, as well as offering an additional way to deliver its service. Yammer has its own Web based service for enterprise power users, however it's a little more pricey at $3-5 per user, per month (depending on what plan they go for). There is, however, no hardware to buy. On the flip side, Socialtext's solution can still be used even if access to the outside world is blocked, which can often be the best time to find out what your employees are up to.
Marketing agency Rosetta released a study Thursday that found Bill Me Later and PayPal are the most popular alternative payment options on the Web, capturing 26 percent and 25 percent market share, respectively. Google Checkout increased its share by just 1 percent in 2008 commanding just 11 percent of the market.
Rosetta also found that 37 percent of the top 100 major retailers on the Web employ alternative payment options like those offered from PayPal and Bill Me Later, but just 7 percent of those retailers offer all three services.
iPhone developer Smule announced Thursday that it has secured $3.9 million of funding in a round that was led by Granite Ventures. According to the company, its apps have been downloaded by more than 1 million users and due to that success, it was able to raise the capital. It plans to use its funding to further invest in apps for the iPhone and other mobile devices.
Mixx, a Digg-like service "for the mainstream," launched a new homepage Thursday called YourMixx and will allow users to decide whether they want the company's new page to be their start page or their individual notifications page. The company also announced that users who write polls that are selected for publication on the site will be rewarded with "Karma and props." The Mixx user who has the most polls published will be given a Pollster badge to add to their profile page.
Enterprise microblogging service Yammer will announce a hosted version of its software Thursday that can be installed inside a corporate firewall, TechCrunch is reporting. Yammer customers will be able to switch from the SaaS version of the software to the hosted service and it plans to transfer network information between both iterations, the report claims. Yammer plans to charge $12 per seat per year.
Swedish search engine Twingly announced Tuesday that it has launched a new microblog search that will allow users to find information and users on sites like Twitter, Jaiku, Identi.ca, and others. Twingly's search service includes a widget that can be embedded into a blog. The company's executives say verbs like "save, retweet, reply, comment should be implemented in the search result."
WeFi, a company that provides information on where to find Wi-Fi hot spots, announced Tuesday that it has launched an online directory to find over 1 million different hot spots. More compelling, the company also announced that users will now be able to send a text message with their location to WeFi, and it will return a complete list of nearby hot spots. Unfortunately, the service charges 50 cents plus standard text-messaging rates. It's available now.
TechCrunch is reporting that online photo sharing site Flickr hasn't been serving ads properly over the past few days. When an advertisement is clicked, it's displayed in a frame inside the window instead of redirecting the user to the advertiser's site. Flickr has yet to comment on the issue.
Yammer, an enterprise microblogging solution, announced Tuesday that it has raised $5 million in a Series A round of financing that was led by the Founders Fund and Charles River Ventures. Yammer executives hope to use the funding to expand its presence in the enterprise space.
Online streaming service Ustream has launched its iPhone app that allows users to watch streaming Ustream channels from Apple's mobile device. The free app requires a Wi-Fi connection to work. It was launched in tandem with the presidential inauguration so users could watch all the festivities on their iPhone.
Twitter may be the leader in the micro-blogging space, but it's missing key features--features its competitors offer. Will Twitter pick up on these omissions? We know groups are coming to Twitter, but we're not so sure about some of these other useful features...
Friendfeed: Twitter++
Although some say Friendfeed isn't a direct competitor to Twitter, I think it is. Twitter has one way to deliver content to the service--you type a thought in 140 characters or fewer and post it--but consider the fact that Friendfeed can do that in a flash, as well as import your blog, Flickr photos, YouTube videos, Twitter stream, and countless other update types from services across the Web. It becomes apparent that if you're looking to do more than post a few quick comments, Twitter is inept.
Without doing much work at all, your entire life can be put in full view on Friendfeed. Want your friends to know what you just added to you Netflix queue (or see what movies your friends added themselves)? Check out Friendfeed. Want to comment on new photos your father uploaded to Flickr? Friendfeed is waiting. More services are adding Twitter plug-ins to send links to your Twitter profile, but they're mostly useless: a TinyURL doesn't replace the design, interaction, and usability of Friendfeed's service.
Performing just one task is fine for a while, but as our desire to do more takes hold, it's Friendfeed that satisfies that desire. Not Twitter.
Identi.ca: Open Twitter
What's so wrong with autonomy? That's Identi.ca's model. Unfortunately, it's not Twitter's.
Identi.ca is an Open Network Service with its entire code base made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. It uses the OpenMicroBlogging protocol, which allows friends on other services to receive Identi.ca notices. In essence, Identi.ca's main goal is to give power back to the user and allow them to take their data and source code and create their own micro-blogging service if Identi.ca itself doesn't cut it. That's more than can be said for Twitter.
Sure, it may be tough to monetize that business model, but wouldn't it be nice if you could take your Twitter profile and updates and create your own Twitter network after the service sends you a Fail Whale one time too many? If you're a Twitter user, haven't you come across a slew of issues that you would like to improve? If Twitter was an open platform like Identi.ca, you could take a stab at it. Unfortunately, it isn't and you're trapped in a service that suffers from instability issues and other quirks that can only be addressed by its developers. That's a shame.
Present.ly: Twitter Groups
It may be designed for businesses (more on that in the next section), but Present.ly does something that Twitter doesn't (at least not yet): it allows users to create groups.
Unlike Twitter, Present.ly provides companies with the tools necessary to create their own micro-blogging network on the service and separate all the users into groups. In other words, companies can place management into one group and lower-level employees into others so discussions can be had between members without worry of unwelcome employees joining in.
From a consumer standpoint, adding groups to Twitter seems like a logical move. Friends would be able to form networks around similar interests and, like Facebook groups, Twitter groups would add a whole new level of engagement to the service and create another reason to use it. Get with the program, Twitter.
Yammer: Twitter while you work
Yammer provides the same, basic experience as Twitter, but with one difference: it's for businesses. Much like Present.ly, Yammer provides businesses with the opportunity to create their own, private micro-blog network.
It allows only those with the company's domain name to join an organization's network, which is a sticking point in many businesses employ contractors. But aside from that single issue, Yammer's ability to appeal to businesses highlights a big issue with Twitter: it provides less value to businesses than it could. Granted, Twitter isn't necessarily designed with the business professional in mind, but shouldn't it be? The service has become a hub for individual employees to connect and network with colleagues, but in the process, it has left the companies themselves out of the loop and allowed services like Yammer and Present.ly to pick up the pieces.
As the world's largest micro-blogging tool, it seems only logical to cater to as many customers as possible. With the infrastructure in place already, allowing the enterprise to get in on the Twitter action with access to its huge user base would make the service even more compelling and render Yammer and Present.ly practically irrelevant. The game is Twitter's to lose.
Don Reisinger is a social network addict. Check out his profiles on Twitter, Friendfeed, Identi.ca, Last.fm, and Flickr.
NEW YORK--At the Web 2.0 Expo, I got a quick demo of Present.ly, which is another Twitter-alike for business. On the surface it is similar to Yammer, winner of the TechCrunch50 best of show award. Present.ly, like Yammer, lets you quickly set up a private microblog where you and your co-workers can enter short update messages.
I find Yammer's interface a bit simpler, but Present.ly has a few important features that will make it a better bet for some companies.
It supports file attachments. That's a win in the workplace. Present.ly also lets you segment out groups, which is useful for filtering the flow of info.
Present.ly doesn't require that all users are on the same e-mail domain, which to my mind is a huge flaw in Yammer--it makes it impossible to invite an outside contractor into a work group.
The biggest wins in Present.ly are at the platform level. Unlike Yammer, you can get Present.ly either as a hosted service, or, if you want, you can install in your business, behind your corporate firewall. And Present.ly supports the Twitter API, so tools that work with Twitter, like Twhirl, should be easily modifiable to work with Present.ly.
Present.ly is free for up to five users. After that, the company charges about $1 per user per month; it varies a bit depending on service plan. Installed versions are available but there's no quoted price on them.
If you want something like Twiitter in your business, check it out. Also check out SocialCast, which I still like a lot (it's more like FriendFeed for business). And see this Web Strategy post, List of Enterprise Microblogging tools.
Tastes like Twitter.
Bonus: Present.ly vs. Yammer gossip
I believe that if Present.ly had been at the TechCrunch50 event, it would have split the vote of the judging panel and prevented Yammer from winning the Best of Show award. Present.ly didn't present at TechCrunch50, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Yoshi Maisami, president of Intridea, which makes Present.ly, told me that he submitted his product for consideration for the event. However, he says, his proposal was rejected out of hand--that he never got the chance to pitch his company to the TechCrunch50 selection committee. If true, that's a shame.
(Credit:
Yammer)
I recently covered Socialcast, a "Friendfeed for business," and liked it a lot. It takes emerging social interaction models that people are just now getting accustomed to and adapts them for business.
Here at TechCrunch50, the idea is also in evidence with Yammer, more of a "Twitter for business" than Socialcast, since it doesn't seem to be able to pull in external feeds the same way.
However, users can have threaded discussions, as they can on FriendFeed. Users can also use "hashtags" for tagging topics, and they can follow just those tags. Useful if you want to follow a project, but not necessarily all the people working on it.
Yammer will launch with a desktop AIR app, as well as iPhone and BlackBerry apps, and an SMS interface.
The base product is free. Enterprise versions with admin tools and security features will cost you.
I really like this concept, but my fear is that this kind of product is too easy to build (especially on a workgroup scale, as compared to the consumer scale Twitter has struggled with). What I don't see is a blocking business strategy. But I still like it.
The service is now live.
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