New ‘Xobni’ Plug-in Supercharges Your Outlook Inbox
Xobni has taken its Microsoft Outlook plug-in out of private beta and made it available to the general public. Xobni promises to add email analytics, a more intelligent address book, fast searching, a threaded conversation view and quite a bit more to Outlook.
Given that Outlook is pretty much de rigueur for most corporate e-mail systems, this should be a welcome addition for those of you trapped in Outlook at work.
Xobni (that’s “inbox” backwards and it’s pronounced “zob-nee”) is the brainchild of Adam Smith, who tells the New York Times that “using Outlook today is like taking a Volkswagen Beetle into space.” Xobni gives Outlook what many consider essential features like better searching and threaded conversations.
In fact, Xobni has proved a hit with Microsoft which initially wanted to buy the technology for future versions of Outlook. Bill Gates himself has showed off the software and calls Xobni “the next generation of social networking.” Apparently the two companies couldn’t agree on a price so the sale isn’t happening, but you can still get Xobni’s features through the plugin.
There’s also good news for those that don’t use Outlook, but would love to have Xobni’s features available in their own mail program — the company is planning to expand. According to the Times, Xobni is looking to expand its reach to other e-mail programs, and even popular web-based services Yahoo Mail, Gmail and Hotmail.
Xobni requires Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007. For a good look some of Xobni’s features in action, check out this video that Lifehacker put together back when the private beta was released:
[via Lifehacker, screenshot courtesy of Xobni]
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