Workplace micro-messaging service Yammer introduced a very interesting new feature today: leaderboards. Organizations using Yammer will now be able to easily discover their top members, best posts and most heavily replied-to threads. It’s a very smart example of the kinds of things that happen when communication is made measurable and turned into data.
I wish Twitter offered this kind of break-out for Twitter Lists. That would be a cool service for a 3rd party to offer. We’re sure to see many more developments like this in the business and consumer worlds soon. Here’s what Yammer is measuring:
- Most Liked Members: Top 10 users whose messages have received the most ‘Likes’
- Most Replied to Members: Top 10 users whose messages have received the most replies
- Members with the Most Posts: Top 10 users with the most public messages posted
- Most Replied to Threads: Top 10 threads with the most replies
- Threads with the Most Participants: Top ten threads with the most participants
How does one climb those leaderboards? The Yammer blog post today also offers advice on how to be engaging in a micro-messaging community. The company says the leaderboards will roll out to customers soon. Competitor Cubetree began offering something similar to account administrators last year. Concerns have been raised about that product that it could lead to people participating in unproductive communication for the sake of the leaderboard.
Programmatic analysis of patterns of communication, in order to foster community and individual self-awareness, to identify outliers, to build benchmarks, incentives for contributions and other benefits, is likely to become an increasingly common way for communication platforms to add value in the future.