For those who read German, our CEO has already weighed in on what he thinks of Twitter when it comes to serving as a useful tool for project managers. One obvious concern with Twitter is that the communications is open, so others can easily follow the tweets. The solution to this dilemma in ensuring privacy for the enterprise comes in the form of a twitter-alternative known as Yammer.

At first glance, Yammer looks to be a pure twitter clone. However, behind the curtain, there are specific functions available that serve the enterprise quite well. There are various administrative features, for example, so you can form groups, create threads, etc. to facilitate team discussion. This way, specific discussions within an enterprise will only be broadcast out to members of a certain team, which is quite practical for project teams and lowering the signal-to-noise ratio for other colleagues.

One guarantee worth noting: The content created/generated via Yammer remains strictly the property of the enterprise. Not only that, but Yammer can be used free of charge. Only to unlock the admin features, etc. is there a small fee at a rate of either $1 or $5 per user/per month, depending upon the feature package you require. Of course, one will still want to put together a plan when implementing Yammer to ensure it is accepted and embraced by the enterprise, but the features provided, especially when compared to twitter, definitely look promising.