LOCAL BUSINESSES INTRODUCED TO ALTERNATIVE MICROBLOGGING SERVICES

Leading IT support company IT Answers has started introducing its clients to a range of business-led microblogging and collaboration services as an alterative to Twitter.

Andy Hilton, the city centre firm's technical director, says sites such as Yammer, Presently and Co-op are creating more opportunities than 'the current people's favourite' for businesses around the region, by offering 'revolutionary new services'.

He added that other web services like DimDim, Evernote and drop.io better suit some organisations' needs for collaboration as they offer additional features such as online meeting facilities and information synchronisation across various devices including iPhones.

Mr Hilton said: "We offer a range of IT services which includes IT Support and Consultancy services to more than 150 companies in total at the moment, but if there are additional opportunities that are available for clients, which packages like these are, it would be wrong not to suggest them as the potential benefits are endless.

"With DimDim for example, employers are able to have meetings with up to 20 members of staff via their computers wherever they are around the world, share each other's desktops and have free voice calls, similar to Skype, on a daily basis."

Most of these collaboration services are free for anyone to use, with charges only being applied for extensions on specific facilities. Unlike Twitter, sites such as Yammer and Presently purposely set out to focus on businesses, and only individuals with the same email domain can join a given network.

Andy added: "For me, I see Twitter now as something used extensively by people on a 'personal' level and that is not of direct benefit to businesses. Instead of finding out snippets of people's lives, like what your friends did at the weekend, local companies need collaboration at an enterprise level, which will save them both time and money whilst increasing productivity and creativity."

"Twitter was never meant for businesses and the people behind it are now trying to shape it into that. Technology is growing at a rapid speed and the market is ever changing, so people are already predicting what will be the next big thing."