Yammer Goes Deep: 50,000 Networks Up and Running

Written by Alex Williams / November 3, 2009 11:45 PM / 4 Comments

Yammer came to the market with one of the first microblogging services. In the span of their existence, a number of companies launched their own versions of an activity stream. But Yammer looks like they have the customers to prove they have a hold on their sector of the market.

At today's Enterprise 2.0 conference, Yammer announced that 50,000 networks have been established with its service. We asked Yammer's Steve Apfelberg what the size of these networks look like. He said they run from a few people to a few thousand, with an average of about 25 to 50 people per network. He declined to provide details about the number of paying clients but said they are showing revenues. But if you did the math, it could be extrapolated that Yammer has 1.25 to 2.5 million customers. How many of those are paying for the Yammer service?

You look around the Enterprise 2.0 conference and it becomes apparent that microblogging is the hot feature for companies on the exhibit floor.

A few of these companies started as wiki providers and added microblogging which helped diversify their products. It's a strategy that works when larger clients want an all-in-one application. But Yammer says they get feedback from clients who want the Yammer service to go deeper. They prefer Yammer's singular focus.

For Yammer, that means deeper active directory integration and fits into enterprise SaaS applications around sales and customer service use cases. That would make sense. Applications of all varieties are integrating into Salesforce.com. For Yammer, Sharepoint integration makes sense, too. By acting as a one point product, a company like Yammer can be flexible with where it integrates.

Here's an interview with Apfelberg and a demo of the Yammer service:

Comments

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We just started experimenting with Yammer last week at COSI among the strategy, development, and marketing teams. While at ASTC, I was keeping up with my coworkers in Columbus wonderfully (including our supervisor who was serving jury duty!). The tricky part will be collectively developing some sort of standards for our tags and such as more users join and it becomes unmanageable to receive all posts. I think the fact they offer an Adobe AIR desktop application makes it much easier to use in a real corporate environment.

Posted by: christmas gifts | November 4, 2009 5:01 AM

If your organization is using Google Apps then Socialwok http://www.socialwok.com is a great open. Use your existing Google Apps login and have the ability to share google docs, calendar events, files and even google waves within your organization.

Posted by: dosco | November 4, 2009 5:42 AM

Presentlyapp has a similar account base (in numbers) and in addition also has many on-premise installs for large enterprises.

We also have ActiveDirectory, LDAP, and Kerberos integration as well as Sharepoint integration already - http://presentlyapp.com/blog/2009/10/sharepoint-web-part

Posted by: Dave | November 4, 2009 7:58 AM

I have a software development team spread across two continents and 3 different universities. We're constantly on the go/never in the office Yammer's mobile integration lets us have a hosted, centralized conversation that has replaced the insanity that is email. Combined w Basecamp and Dropbox, it's the perfect combo.

Posted by: vitamin k | December 18, 2009 9:37 PM