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Xobni and the Future of the Email Inbox

Over the past four weeks or so, I have been playing with a free outlook plug-in that has transformed my inbox into a much cooler place to be. It’s called Xobni (“inbox” spelled backwards) and I can now report with conviction that it is one of the more useful pieces of software on my PC. It fundamentally changes how I use Outlook, and actually increases the value of the email I have stored there by providing me with far easier access to it and the specific information contained within. Besides being very cool software, I believe Xobni and other new products out there on the horizon will be altering the landscape of the inbox in the near term and fundamentally changing how consumers interact with their email.

Xobni indexes all of one’s Outlook email and makes it easily searchable—an extremely useful feature. What is most interesting, however, is how Xobni extracts data from ones emails and analyzes it. For one, the software examines the “To” and “CC” lines of emails, combines it with frequency information, and makes inferences about personal connections, featuring these connections as a “network” of contacts. It’s interesting to note in the screenshot below that both ‘Marketing Daily’ and ‘MediaPost Publications’ are featured right at the top of my network.

The software extracts phone numbers from email signatures as well, and displays this information for convenient access. It also aggregates access to all of the files exchanged between certain senders—very useful stuff.

One of Xobni’s coolest features is called Xobni Analytics—the interface provides a fascinating view into one’s email patterns. It features “time to respond” information by recipient, as well as email traffic by hour, domain, type, etc. For someone who eats, breathes, and sleeps email, this information is fascinating.

I believe the development of products like Xobni and others on the horizon will absolutely change user behaviors around the inbox. For me personally, it has vastly increased the value of my archived newsletters, as I now can search them all by keyword and quickly access all of that stored information. For example, a quick search for “deliverability” in my mail account yielded 148 relevant results—most listings were from saved newsletters.

I believe it’s probably too early to adjust email marketing strategies to accommodate these new products, but exciting developments in email clients are definitely coming down the pike, and I believe they will only increase the value of authentic, relevant email.

Check out Xobni and let me know if you think it’s as cool as I do. And if you’ve seen other inbox plug-ins that you think may help shape the future of the email inbox, please share.

—Nicholas Einstein of Datran Media

Posted on June 5, 2008 4:27 PM | Permalink

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Comments (3)

arturo:

Sounds awesome. Do you know of anything like this that works with Mac mail. Love my macbookpro but I sometimes feel ignored - like I can't invite Facebook contacts from my Mac contact list.
Help.

Posted by arturo | June 7, 2008 9:22 AM

Posted on June 7, 2008 09:22

Nicholas Einstein:

Arturo,
I reached out to the Folks at Xobni, who let me know that a plan for a mac edition is not yet on the roadmap [see below], and I unfortunately don't know of any cool plugins for mac's mail program. If you find one, let me know.
n.

"Hi Nicholas,
A Mac version isn’t currently under development. There are a lot of product improvements we have planned for the PC version before switching over to a Mac version. I don’t have a timeline for when we would release a Mac version, but it certainly wouldn’t be in the next year.
Best,
Matt"
[Matt Brezina, Xobni co-founder]

Posted by Nicholas Einstein | June 9, 2008 6:04 PM

Posted on June 9, 2008 18:04

arturo:

I understand that all companies have constraints on development but I seriously think Xobni is missing a market -one that looks to be exploding. Apple is going after the enterprise market in a big way.

Posted by arturo | June 11, 2008 7:20 AM

Posted on June 11, 2008 07:20

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the voices of email

The Email Experience Council's membership includes many of the brightest and most committed email marketing experts. We're pleased to have some of them share their insights here on these pages. Our blog contributors include:

Jordan Ayan is the chairman of Create-It!, a technology consulting organization, as well as the CEO of SubscriberMail, one of the leading email marketing companies. A two-time book author, a patent holder and a frequent speaker, Jordan has more than 20 years of experience in direct and database marketing. Read more.

Nicholas Einstein is director of strategic and analytic services at Datran Media. Specializing in email and CRM strategy, he helps some of America’s top brands leverage online channels to communicate more effectively with their customers and prospects.

Lisa Harmon is a principal at Smith-Harmon, a creative services consultancy dedicated to email marketing strategy and production. She works with marketers to increase clickthrough, maximize revenue, and infuse delight into their email creative. Lisa is also the blogger behind edm.smith-harmon.com, an ongoing commentary on the best (and worst!) in email marketing creative. Read more.

Chip House is ExactTarget's VP of marketing services, leading the teams responsible for client success. He was named to BtoB Magazine’s 2005 “Who’s Who in B-To-B,” for being a vocal proponent of legitimate commercial email and an active lobbyist regarding spam and privacy issues. Read more.

Marco Marini is the CEO of ClickMail Marketing (CMM) and an acknowledged expert in e-marketing with over a decade and half's-worth of experience in the field. Before taking over as CEO, he was CMM's VP of Marketing & Operations. Marini has also held key marketing positions with CyberSource, eHealthInsurance, DoveBid and IBM Canada.

Stephanie Miller is VP of strategic services for Return Path, the leading email performance company. She works with marketers to earn a higher ROI and response from their acquisition and retention email programs—developing content, contact and segmentation strategies, along with testing, measurement and production programs. Read more.

Erick Mott is communications director at email service provider Lyris. He has 20 years of experience from enterprise, SMB, agency and start-up marketing, communications and innovation roles at companies including Habeas, Nokia, MarkMonitor, GlobalFluency, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Philips Electronics and two of his own start-ups. Read more.

Jeanniey Mullen is the Email Experience Council's founder and the global EVP and CMO of global online publishing company Zinio. She is a thought leader and visionary in the email and digital marketing field. A columnist for ClickZ, she has published numerous papers and is a frequent speaker. Read more.

Kevin Senne is the Strategic Deliverability Director for Premiere Global Services. Kevin has been heavily involved in all facets of email marketing for more than a decade and he previously managed Email Operations for Travelocity.com. Kevin specializes in deliverability, strategy, and social media integratio and he focuses on helping marketers become permission-based one-to-one marketers. Read more.

Charles Stiles is the VP of worldwide business development at Goodmail Systems. In his role, Charles is focused on helping generate a better understanding of the email environment and potential solutions for a better consumer experience. He currently serves as the chairman for the Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group. Read more.

Jeremy Swift is director of client relations for email service provider BlueHornet. He helped form BlueHornet’s founding team in 2000 and has been responsible for client services and marketing strategy since the company’s inception. Jeremy is known for his ability to articulate technical information in ways that clearly resonate with today’s online marketer.

Kara Trivunovic currently serves as the senior director of strategic services for StrongMail Systems, where she is responsible for helping marketers optimize their email marketing programs for greater returns. Most recently Kara was founder and principal of The Email Advisor, a respected email marketing consultancy. Prior to launching The Email Advisor, Kara led strategic services for the email division of Premiere Global Services. Kara brings a unique perspective to the space having worked on the client, agency and provider side for 10 years.

Chris Wheeleris the director of deliverability at Bronto Software. He is leading the charge for ensuring both Bronto's customers and staff are well informed about email marketing practices and technology as well as being the face of Bronto deliverability externally. Previously, Chris created the internal deliverability program at Amazon.com alongside program managing the operations of the email team and was at an ESP leading a team of deliverability consultants. Besides being a frequent contributor on Deliverability.com, Chris is a part of many email industry forums, both business and technical. Read more.

Chad White is the research director at Smith-Harmon, an email marketing strategy and creative services agency. He is the founder of the Retail Email Blog, a blog dedicated to tracking the email marketing practices of the largest online retailers. Chad regularly writes major research reports on email marketing and is an Email Insider columnist for MediaPost. Read more.