Will Chatter By @SalesForce Help Us Communicate Better?

I’m just finishing the book “The Pursuit Of Social Business Excellence” by Vala Afshar and Brad Martin.  One thing they talk about quite a bit in the book is Chatter by SalesForce.com.  I just created a free account and we’re testing it at Phone.com.  If this does the following I think we’re really onto something:

• Reduce internal email volume
• Eliminate the need for instant messenger software
• Increase collaboration
• Simply give people a way to put a name with a face
• Reduce noise
• Help us communicate better

My overall first impression of this is that it very well could achieve all of these.  I will update you as we test this further.  Do any of our readers use Chatter?  If so, what is something we should know as brand new users?