When I first heard of Xobni through Michael Arrington, I was insanely excited to see a tool with this much power coming out for Outlook! As a software developer / software manager / software tester / software architect, software visionary, I have an unbelievable amount of email! And it never seems to stop! But what emails are the most important to read? Who sends me the most emails? Or how about that thing I know you all have asked yourselves at least a hundred times “Hey, didn’t you send me that file the other day? What day did you send it?”.
The Power of Xobni
What makes Xobni so powerful (software developers out there, take note!) is that you can continue to use Outlook exactly as you do today, however you get additional functionality and data intelligence added to your user experience. I’ve used other tools for Outlook (A ton, like some of you) and I always end up removing them because they slow down my system, or just plain don’t seem to add the value for the cost. Cost vs. Value, that’s a great title for another entry later on! What makes your users switch, upgrade, pay maintenance fees. I won’t diverge into that topic here.
Xobni focuses on three issues that make Outlook seem ancient. Fast Search, Finding Attachments Easily, Navigating Outlook by People, and creating Threaded Conversations.
Finding Attachments from someone that sent you a file a few days ago will be as simple as looking to the right of the email, and just finding the file you wanted! It will literally take you seconds!
Having a conversation about budgets with your boss? Can’t seem to remember who else was involved, and what files were shared? No problem at all! Just use the Conversations With xyz option, and watch a whole new world open up in front of your eyes!
Context at Your Fingertips
Even if you don’t click a single thing within the Xobni Insight panel, you will love Xobni. By creating various profiles for all the contacts you have in your e-mail, you finally get fantastic context to all your emails extremely easily. This is a powerful feature for me. For example. I can quickly see what rank a user posses when I get an email from them. How much weight does this user really have? And who is connected to this user anyway? Anybody important? Maybe I should CC them on the email? When was the last time we talked about this, I thought we just did last week? When is a good time to send them an email so they read it? All these questions are answered almost instantly by just glancing over at Xobni Insight’s panel.
The Genius Behind Xobni
The real genius behind Xobni is that they realized that they can give users more information, and allow users to interact in whole new ways with their email, without asking them to track any more information at all! Most new programs you use, ask you to enter more information for tracking purposes. Applications like Xobni are the way of the future my friends! I can’t believe more people are not jumping all over ideas like this. Instead of asking users to track more information, do more work, and try and convince them to enter more data up front in order to provide them with new features and reports, why not let them install an application, that analyzes the data, and then gives you a ton of cool features! What a concept!
This is what Google figured out, this is what Facebook does so well, and this is what Xobni does phenomenally well. I’m curious how long it will take before the company is snapped up. Sadly it probably won’t be to sell Xobni, it will probably be to acquire the talent behind the tool. Just look at what Microsoft did with Lookout. Lookout was a fantastic product, but it has yet to be integrated into Outlook. Sure we have a new Search option in Outlook 2007, but come on, it is the slowest thing I have ever used.
Xobni is full of so many features I don’t even want to get into them here. If you want fast search, awesome data mining capabilities for your email, Xobni is the tool for you. I can’t remember the last time I used a tool and within minutes ran to people sending them screenshots of my new Outlook Experience! It definitely lives up to its branding of effortless email management!
If you would like to try out Xobni, visit the Xobni site and sign up for the closed beta. You will be impressed! Xobni was founded in 2006 in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Adam Smith and Matt Brezina.
Xobni – It’s Inbox Backwards