Have an IUP email address? Want to play with a new web app? Here’s your chance.

Go to Yammer.com and create an account using your IUP email address. For identification purposes, it’s probably best to use the address that contains your first and middle initials followed by your last name (ex. s.m.farner@iup.edu). Once your account is created, you’ll automatically be added to the IUP.edu network.

What you’ll find is a site much like the popular microblogging service Twitter. The difference? It’s only for people on your network. Yammer recently won best startup at TechCrunch50, an event where new startups show off the service or web site they’ve created.

Play around with it and let me know what you think. I can see this having TONS of potential uses on a college campus.  It could serve as a student-powered information machine or as an outlet for people to talk about whatever they want.  Just as Twitter has, in multiple instances, been the first source of breaking news such as earthquakes and other natural disasters, Yammer could be the fastest way to spread news to 15,000+ students.

But first, we have to adopt it.