Xobni has earned its role as one of the pioneers in this increasingly competitive segment of enhanced Outlook contact manager webtools. Xobni removed the Beta label in March of 2009 and
has since announced the availability of their premium fee based Xobni Plus. What hasn’t changed is that it delivers an enhanced amount of information about your contacts, your communication with them and your use of Outlook.
Here are the core features and benefits of Xobni’s free version, available in the slideout from the right side of your Outlook screen:
Lightning fast Email Search. You will no longer have to rely on the slooooow search function with Outlook. One unique element of Xobni is that search results are split into two categories: people and mail. Why is this important? Most users have an easier time remembering names over keywords. When you are looking for an old email message, you can usually remember the name of the person who sent it to you. Type that name into the search box, click on the people result, and you’ll get every conversation you had with that person, as well as all the attachments, contact information, and other information you may need.
Xobni connects your Outlook contacts to their social network profiles, providing additional contact info, profile photo, company information and titles all organized and ready for your use automatically. Xobni pulls contact info from email signatures, message bodies, Outlook contacts, as well as info from LinkedIn, Facebook, Hoovers, Skype, and Yahoo. If you need to quickly pull up the phone number, company name, and title before your meeting, simply type their name in the Xobni search box, and their whole profile of information will be at your fingertips.
Threaded Conversations provide Email as it was meant to be read with your emails in context, showing all the connections with those on the message thread. All messages between you and a contact are instantly displayed as a list of email conversations. Emails are threaded based on their subject and are shown in the order in which they occurred. Xobni also conveniently shows you which conversations include attachments with the help of a handy paperclip. You can also see instantly who said what and when they said it. You can expand or contract the Detail slider to get just the information you need.
Attachments are always just one click away. Never have to scramble when you are on the phone and your contact asks you about information contained in an earlier attachment. Do you ever get an email from your boss asking for feedback on a document she sent you three weeks ago? Before Xobni, finding the exact document wasn’t an easy task. With Xobni’s Files Exchanged feature, you can quickly find the document without leaving the email you were working on. Suppose the attachment was from Carol. Open Carol’s Xobni profile by searching for her name or navigating to an email from her. The Files Exchanged section will display every attachment you have sent and received. You’ll quickly find that document she sent you. The ability to filter the attachments, track version numbers and to click and drag the attachments will save valuable time throughout your workday.
Email Analytics are something that I had never given much thought to prior to installing Xobni. Do you know what time of the day is the best time to get a response from your boss? Do you know the balance of your relationship with your customer: do they send you more email or do you send them more? Who are the top 10 people you send emails to? Do you send more emails to your boss than your spouse? Xobni exposes all of this data and more about the people you communicate with — in Outlook automatically. From inside the Xobni menu you can access Xobni Analytics – a powerful tool for analyzing your own email behaviors over time.
Xobni Mobile is coming soon, allowing you to take advantage of its powerful capabilities from your Blackberry. Click here to get on the notification list.
The ability to stay in touch, to maintain active relationships with your valuable contacts is now a reality. If you have never tried Xobni, do it today. Just download the newest version and give it a try. It is a quick and easy install. It you tried an early beta version of Xobni, give it another look. Speed, interface and overall usability is much improved and it simply works. Let us know what you learn about your contacts after using Xobni.