Last time I had a look at one of the pioneers in the inbox management area. Today, it is the turn of one of the young guns and - being young - this one brings (amongst many other features) social networking aspects to Outlook.
Described by TechCrunch as The super plug-in for Outlook Xobni is an Outlook plug-in that saves you time finding email conversations, contacts and attachments. The name is “inbox” spelled backward and is pronounced “ZOB-nee.”
According to their site Xobni will:
- find email instantly
- give you threaded conversations (Email how it was meant to be read, with conversations in context - like GMail)
- Email analytics (with rankings, graphs, and statistics detailing how you and your contacts use email)
- quick attachment discovery (historical attachments available instantly without searching)
- navigate your inbox by people (discover email’s social network - quickly identify a contact’s manager, business partner, or assistant)
- phone numbers extracted from emails (contact details pop into the sidebar - never search for a phone number again)
- be your personal assistant (schedule appointments with a click of a button - Xobni automagically finds open slots in your busy schedule)
This demonstration video is available on the site:
Read what Malt Mossberg from the NYT had to say about Xobni in this article: Xobni Can Make Good Old Email Even More Useful or watch his video review:
Webworker tells us what it was like spending a week using Xobni.
The most recent additions to the functionality of this plug-in is the support it now has for all your social networks. Xobni added LinkedIn integration recently and then went the whole hog shortly afterwards by also adding support for a whole slew of additional connections. In the latest release, Xobni brings integration with Yahoo! Mail, Facebook, Hoovers and greatly enhanced Skype functionality.
The bottom line? As we connect with people through so many various channels, having a way to tie these communications together and connected to your contacts is becoming more critical. If you’re an Outlook user, these Xobni improvements look to be a step in the right direction.
If you like Xobni, you should check out Gist (www.gist.com). It works with Outlook as well as Gmail and any other web-based information source (LinkedIn, etc.) combining your contacts with news about them.
Robert
Gist, Inc.