Though the site looks seemingly similar to Yammer, QikCom (apparently unrelated to Qik, the video streaming website) has a different take on enterprise microblogging and takes a stab at its competitors by pointing out that there service is completely free.

Consumer Microblogging First, Now Enterprise Microblogging

Microblogging has taken consumers by storm, but now it’s time for the enterprise. The team of experienced tech and UI design guys behind QikCom are dedicated to making it easier for businesses to communicate and believe that microblogging is indeed the answer.

QikCom is free for employees to sign up (similar to most other enterprise services) and it’s also free to become an admin and to secure/control the network. This second point is obviously a dig at Yammer, which allows an admin to exist on the network, but if they want to delete messages or remove users, the company must pay the $1/user/month fee to take control. Read the full story

Consumers and Twitter have gone hand in hand for two years now, but finally businesses are starting to latch on to the idea. Although some companies are using Twitter well and being effective with it, Jeremy Pepper is afraid that Twitter might become the next “you must create a insert latest social media website account for your company or ELSE!” meme.

On his blog, POP! PR Jots, Jeremy lays out some simple ground rules for companies who want to join the Twittersphere. We’ve listed his recommendations below and made some of our own comments in relation to business microblogging at large.

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Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting has been hard at work documenting many of the Enterprise Class Microblogs also dubbed as Microsharing (more on this in a future post). A list of the platforms can be found on her blog here. In addition to that list, yesterday Laura published a comprehensive matrix of platforms on Mashable.

This matrix is the first side by side comparison that I am aware of matching up the 15 different, publicly-known platforms against each other.

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Yammer, an enterprise microblogging platform mirrored after Twitter, launched at TechCrunch50 this year and grabbed the attention of everyone.

Yammer was developed by a genealogy site called Geni that was looking for a way to improve internal communications. David Sacks, founder of Geni, liked the finished concept so much he decided it would be worthwhile to spin off as its own company, offering it to other enterprises as well.

The purpose is to allow co-workers to share status updates. You post updates on what you are working on. You can post news, links, ask questions, and get answers for people in your company.

You can see most the most prolific people and the most followed people. It is a good way to discover who is the most influential in your company.

To start using Yammer in your company is very easy. Anyone with a company email address can start the Yammer network and begin inviting coworkers. Each network remains private by limiting access to those with a valid company email address. Yammer also states that information is never shared with third parties.

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