Monday, June 27, 2011

Xobni is more than just inbox spelled backwards

Head over to www.xobni.com and you'll immediately be greeted with the company's tagline. Your Inbox is full of messages People!

In today's world on the net we are communicating with each other in more and more channels. I have friends that I talk to only on Facebook, only on Twitter, only on LinkedIn and through email. What Xobni looks to do is not only reinvigorate your email but also make it more the center of your communication channels.

Xobni combines all of the information from all of your social networks and integrates it into your email so you have more information on those you're communicating with through email.

Xobni has been out for both outlook and Blackberry but now it's on it's way to AndroidiPhone, and Gmail. Click on the respective keyword to signup for the beta.

It took me about two weeks to get my invite and I have had the chance to play around with it.

After signing in and installing the plug-in I was asked to link my other social networks. Authorizing each one was simple since I was signed in to all of them and it only required that I click "accept."


When connecting it gave me a message saying that it was indexing all of my contacts. I have 800 on Facebook, 500 on Twitter, and 600 on Linked In. With all these contacts it still took only a minute to complete the process. Normally I'm hesitant about linking up all of my networks but the more you connect with Xobni the more powerful it becomes.

When I click on an email I now get a ton of information about the user who sent it on the right-hand side of gmail. I get their profile picture, their company and title. Below are four tabs, social network updates, relationship history, recent emails, and frequently emailed with. While self-explanatory and seemingly simple, these are wanted features. When communicating through email it is very helpful having this information at your fingertips without having to enter a search query.

Additional features, labeled as gadgets, are available for download on their site and most are free. Evernote, DropBox, WebEx, and Chatter are just a few of the gadgets.

Before I mention any complaint I do want to point out that I am reviewing the Gmail Beta version.

The one very small complaint that I have is that it tries to pick profile information for email lists. Maybe it's that I've been ruined by Google's ability to know what is and isn't relevant but I do find it annoying when a profile pic is listed beside a list address.

Other than that it's an amazing tool! I highly recommend that you try it out.

Have you been using Xobni? Let us know what your thoughts are on it!

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