The annual performance review. Unless you're one of those people who has perfected sucking up to the boss, never says “no” to a request and spends so much time in the office your family has forgotten what you look like, chances are you seldom look forward to the annual “big chit-chat” with the boss over your performance.

Annual reviews aren't ideal. If the big day falls during a less-than-optimal time for either you or your supervisor, you may come away from the meeting angry, frustrated and confused, having been criticized for the way you handled a project 10 months ago. Likewise, the topics you meant to address with your boss may have been very clear six months before, but have faded now that you're face to face. And if you did a great job on a project 11 months before, the chances that it will be remembered on your review are slim.

So how useful would a solution that helps keep track of your performance on an ongoing basis be? Very, a Toronto-based startup company called Rypple is predicting. According to Mashable, Rypple aims to change the dynamic of the annual performance review with the release of version 3.0 of its progressive online feedback tool to help employees get recognized for their work on an ongoing basis.

Rypple takes a real-time approach to employee recognition with a feedback platform that encourages regular and public recognition associated with tasks, manager-employee coaching and employee requests for feedback. The startup is rolling out a host of new features with the release of its new version today.

Rypple users can reward each other for jobs well done with badges that get posted to a Facebook (News - Alert)-like wall; and managers are notified in the process. Users can now create their own personalized badges to recognize achievement. Rypple is also now organized around people instead of concepts, a UI change that puts an emphasis on work relationships.

Another improvement is the addition of social goals. The tool enables users to create goals across multiple teams and link them back to action items. Progress made toward completing these goals will appear to all team members in the activity feed. This makes tasks more social and is designed to engineer even more participation. Many of the updates were made in response to feature and design requests from customers, an appropriate move for a feedback platform.

Rypple is a freemium product; its creators believe it to be more a platform than merely social networking for the enterprise. To that end, the startup plugs in to third-party APIs and serves as a layer on top of existing social products. Its current client base numbers are in the thousands, and customers include Mozilla (News - Alert), Cisco and WebEx. In September, the startup raised $7 million in a Series A round led by Bridgescale Partners.