Xobni Outlook Add-on “Incredibly Useful”

January 8, 2008 at 9:10 pm · Filed under Carla Thompson, Startups, Web 2.0 ·Tagged email, Outlook, productivity, Xobni

I am perhaps no more geekier than when it comes to analytics. I love viewing life – digital, financial, musical – by graphs, stats, and categories; products like RescueTime and Mint are among my favorite. So it was with bated breath that I opened my long-awaited beta invite to Xobni this morning, the Outlook add-on about which many have raved.

I’m just starting to play around with it but am already impressed with its algorithms. It ranks my email correspondents, though I’m not sure by which criteria yet. Frequency of conversations, perhaps? (Chris lands the top spot and our editor Kristin Kueter comes in second, while my husband is way down at number 11. I won’t try to interpret that.) Its analytics are deep and multifaceted and I can’t wait to pie-chart and bar-graph to my heart’s content.

I’m also really liking the search function. Typing in a first name brings up people in my contacts, relevant emails and even Web results. The options that appear when one email is highlighted are incredibly useful, including click-to-talk, previous email trails and attachments sent and received. The one nit I have so far is that it’s yet another panel in my Outlook window. But if its functionality improves my email life as much as I suspect it will, I’ll put up with that extra window. I’ll update more as I use Xobni further.

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