5 Yammer Alternatives That Are Actually Better Than Yammer Itself

 
After Microsoft has aquired Yammer, there has been a number of high profile defections and complaints, regarding service reliability. Yammer status page itself shows there's at least one serious outage/tech issue each month with Yammer/Microsoft which is unacceptable to most businesses. The good news there are a number of Yammer alternatives that you can use - and some even offer more features, while costing much less (or being entirely free), so let's take a look at them.

1. Bitrix24.com

Bitrix24 is often considered the best among Yammer alternatives on the grounds that it's 100% free for small companies/departments and that it comes with a number of features unavailable in Yammer itself - namely really powerfull CRM, Dropbox-like Bitrix24.Drive, Project Management, File Sharing and 30+ enterprise tools. Another important advantage over other Yammer alternatives is the fact that with Bitrix24 you can choose between a cloud based SaaS option or host Bitrix24 on your own server (which is critical for having full control over your data). Finally, mobile apps for Bitrix 24 in Appstore and Google Play have higher ratings than Yammer mobile app. Definitely your first try on a post-Yammer journey.

2. WhatsApp

Lots of folks use Yammer only for their mobile app that act as an instant messenger and just like with Bitrix24, WhatApp does a better job while costing only a dollar (or free, in some instances). WhatsApp major advantage is that it works on ALL mobile platforms - iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and even supports Nokia S40 and S60. Chances are most of your friends and collagues already have WhatsApp installed on their phones.

3. Zoho

Zoho is a suite of  small business tools that sometimes falls short on actual collaboration features, but is nevertheless is generally a better fit for small businesses than Yammer ever was. Zoho is very stingy on free offers (3 free users max) and suffers from whats known as 'Indian code syndrome' among programmers (when things don't work how they are supposed to or have really weird internal logic) and does not let you use mobile apps until you switch to a paid plan. Still, Zoho has been improving slowly over time and you should at least consider taking a peek at the website.

4. ZenDesk

If you used Yammer inside customer service department, I suggest you make a switch to ZenDesk or FreshDesk (which are nearly identical in every single respect). Not only these two make working on customer complaints much easier and faster, for the moment their integration with Microsoft products, like Dynamics (CRM) is done at a much better level.

5. SalesForce Chatter

Finally, if you are working for a big company that's unhappy with a solution from a big company, but want to switch only to another big company, SalesForce Chatter is your most logical choice. While quite expensive and compicated by the standards of most businesses, it comes with almost 200 apps from AppExchange that work with SalesForce Chatter, some of which you are probably already using. Importantly, while Yammer CEO seems to have given up on tyring to improve his product, Marc Benioff has consistently put the money where his mouth is, investing over a billion dollars in acquisitions that give more work options to both SalesForce CRM and Chatter users.

Red-Hot Startups - Silp.Com Review

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

https://silp.com/

Social recruiting is gaining traction nowadays. With the amount of information people are willing to divulge about themselves online, especially on social networking sites, that doesn’t come as a surprise. More information means more facts and figures for interested parties, like recruiting professionals, to sort through.

While there already are a handful of companies making waves in the field of social recruiting, like BranchOut and Path.to, Silp, a social recruiting startup, seeks to introduce a new angle to social recruiting – passive recruitment, as co-founder Dominik Grolimund, calls it. Grolimund is not new to the startup scene. He is the brains behind Wuala, an online storage company that he later sold to LaCie, which was consequently acquired by SeaGate.

Passive recruiting, in a nutshell, isn’t for people looking to find jobs immediately. Instead, it is designed in such a way that people won’t have to actively look for jobs any longer. This time around, the right jobs will come to them. That is what Silp is hoping to achieve, at least.

Interesting proposition, but the interesting question is, how does Silp plan to pull that off?

First off, Silp is a Facebook app. Once signed up, Silp extracts a mini resume from your educational background and work history on Facebook, and merges that with publicly available information from other platforms linked to Facebook, such as Twitter, About.me, Tumblr and GitHub.

As soon as a job posting is made through Silp, things are set into motion: (1) Facebook graph kicks in and the employer’s friends and their network of friends see who might be best qualified for the job, and (2) they recommend the position to them.

When asked why instead of LinkedIn the app was built for Facebook, Grolimund responded by saying a person normally recommends a job to a friend, not to someone he/she met for a few minutes in a business meeting.

[Via - NicheGeek.com]

5 Yammer Alternatives That Are Actually Better Than Yammer Itself

Student Startups - BestParking.com

Fashion Startups - Fohr Card

Duda Mobile Takes On iOS And Android

PickyDomains - startup that caught everyone by surprise

From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping

Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor

DoNanza - Freelance Startup That Broke All Rules

How TribeHR Turned Simple Idea Into Millions

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Release

Cool Startups - FohrCard.com

Hot Tips - The Best Free Business Tool You (Probably) Don't Know About.

http://www.fohrcard.com/

Nowadays, if a brand is solely focused on traditional marketing, i.e., television, radio, billboard and print advertising, chances are it’s not tapping its full potential. Online marketing, with the growing popularity of blogs and other social media platforms, has become critical for brand advertising as well.

Fohr Card, an analytics platform created by James Nord, a blogger and photographer, alongside Rich Tong, Tumblr’s former fashion director, and Holly Stair, a social media manager, aims to bring brands and bloggers together to form a partnership that can include advertising, sponsored content and gift giving.

With Fohr Card, bloggers are given the chance to be found by brands, where they can showcase their social media following across different social media platforms (Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), including their real-time traffic stats. When joining Fohr Card, bloggers agree to divulge their private Google Analytics figures to eliminate numbers-fudging.

While Chris Black, a social media marketing consultant whose clientele includes Gilt Groupe and New Balance, firmly believes that big numbers don’t necessarily equal engaged users, the Fohr Card team assures brands that not every blogger is invited to join the platform. Alongside popularity, every blogger’s Fohr Card is reviewed to guarantee quality and original content.

For brands to gain access to Fohr Card’s roster of more than 1,800 fashion and beauty bloggers, an annual membership fee of $5,000 (more for large companies and agencies) is required. They then gain access to the bloggers’ numbers. Fohr Card also allows them to sort through the numbers by region, category (DIY, menswear, nail art, etc.), and traffic on certain platforms. Puma and Oscar dela Renta are just two of Fohr Card’s brand launch partners.

Mr. Nord also divulges that they plan to eventually recruit travel, food, mommy bloggers and others to turn Fohr Card into a global marketing tool.

[Via - NicheGeek.Com]

Mobile Startups - XSync

Startup Of The Week - Mailigen

Duda Mobile Takes On iOS And Android

PickyDomains - startup that caught everyone by surprise

From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping

Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor

DoNanza - Freelance Startup That Broke All Rules
 
How TribeHR Turned Simple Idea Into Millions

Cool Startups - ShelfLife

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Release

10 Totally Stupid Online Business Ideas That Made Someone Rich

How to get rich the smart way? Looking for internet business ideas? Read what some creative people did:
1. Million Dollar Homepage
1000000 pixels, charge a dollar per pixel – that’s perhaps the dumbest idea for online business anyone could have possible come up with. Still, Alex Tew, a 21-year-old who came up with the idea, is now a millionaire.
2. PickyDomains
Hire another person to think of a cool domain name for you? No way people would pay for this. Actually, naming domain names for others turned out a thriving business, especially, when you make the entire process risk free. PickyDomains currently has a waiting list of people who want to PAY the service to come up with a snappy memorable domain name. PickyDomains is expected to hit six figures this year. Full Story

3. Doggles
Create goggles for dogs and sell them online? Boy, this IS the dumbest idea for a business. How in the world did they manage to become millionaires and have shops all over the world with that one? Beyond me.
4. Bitrix24
Bitrix24 started out with an idea that's both gutsy and crazy - become the Facebook of corporate intranets. While corporate intranet usually costs tens of thousands of dollars to develop and deploy and may take months, Bitrix24 started offering free online intranet via SaaS model to small businesses and is now one of the fastest growing business social networks. Full story
5. AntennaBalls
You can’t sell antenna ball online. There is no way. And surely it wouldn’t make you rich. But this is exactly what Jason Wall did, and now he is now a millionaire. Full Story
6. FitDeck
Create a deck of cards featuring exercise routines, and sell it online for $18.95. Sounds like a disaster idea to me. But former Navy SEAL and fitness instructor Phil Black reported last year sales of $4.7 million. Surely beats what military pays.
7. PositivesDating.Com
How would you like to go on a date with an HIV positive person? Paul Graves and Brandon Koechlin thought that someone would, so they created a dating site for HIV positive folks last year. Projected 2006 sales are $110,000, and the two hope to have 50,000 members by their two-year mark.
8. Designer Diaper Bags
Christie Rein was tired of carrying diapers around in a freezer bag. The 34-year-old mother of three found herself constantly stuffing diapers for her infant son into freezer bags to keep them from getting scrunched up in her purse. Rein wanted something that was compact, sleek and stylish, so in November 2004, she sat down with her husband, Marcus, who helped her design a custom diaper bag that's big enough to hold a travel pack of wipes and two to four diapers. With more than $180,000 in sales for 2005, Christie's company, Diapees & Wipees, has bags in 22 different styles, available online and in 120 boutiques across the globe for $14.99.
9. SantaMail
Ok, how’s that for a brilliant idea. Get a postal address at North Pole, Alaska, pretend you are Santa Claus and charge parents 10 bucks for every letter you send to their kids? Well, Byron Reese sent over 200000 letters since the start of the business in 2001, which makes him a couple million dollars richer. Full Story

10. Lucky Wishbone Co.
Fake wishbones. Now, this stupid idea is just destined to flop. Who in the world needs FAKE PLASTIC wishbones? A lot of people, it turns out. Now producing 30,000 wishbones daily (they retail for 3 bucks a pop) Ken Ahroni, the company founder, expects 2006 sales to reach $1 million.
11. Bonus
Site X is currently the most popular online design contest marketplace. Like others, it relies on the concept of crowd sourcing in bringing together a pool of designers from all over the world and small to medium-sized businesses, which needs design solutions. While it’s hard not to be impressed with Site X...
12. Bonus 2
From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping
To see other businesses and online business ideas that have not made the top 10 list but came pretty close, visit Business Ideas Blog