Xobni for Outlook 1.9.5 Released – First Xobni Gadgets Available

by Josh Jacobson

Earlier this year, Xobni announced that we would be porting the OpenSocial-powered Gmail Contextual Gadgets into Xobni for Outlook, and made a preview version available to developers.  Today we are releasing Xobni 1.9.5, which includes a taste of Xobni Gadgets for the public to enjoy.

Scores of developers have approached us about creating workplace gadgets that increase productivity and collaboration. We’ll be working with trusted developers over time to make their gadgets available to millions of Xobni and Outlook users.

Today, the first reference gadgets that are available are Flickr, Yelp and YouTube.

How it works in Xobni 1.9.5: When an email is sent to a Xobni user that includes a Flickr photo link, YouTube video link or Yelp business listing link, a rich preview of each link will appear at the bottom of the email.  Sometimes a preview is all you need to save the seven-second trip to the browser.  Other times, the preview will simply be a quick way to click straight to the full browser page.  If an email contains multiple links (see picture below), we’ve created a tabbed experience to preserve precious screen space.  Of course, the Xobni Gadget bar at the bottom of messages easily expands and contracts as needed, and can be turned off through Xobni Options.

Over time, new message and sidebar gadgets will become available to users through the Xobni Gadget Manager, which is accessible through the Xobni options.

In addition to Flickr, YouTube, and Yelp, Xobni for Outlook 1.9.5 includes the following changes since 1.9.4:

• Sidebar integration with Huddle (full post here)
• Faster search speed
• Better performance in slow or unreliable network situations
• Ability to disable “search as you type” (in options)
• Tons of speed and stability improvements
• Bug fixes in many areas including AutoSuggest, conversation threading, and memory usage

Developers interested in making their products/services available in Outlook can go to http://www.xobni.com/developer to learn more.

Note: After you download, you will be prompted to close Outlook and the new Xobni version will be installed. All of your data (Xobni profile merges, contact information entries) will be maintained, no matter what version you are using currently.

If you have already purchased Xobni Plus, this download will simply update your software. You will not need to sign in again and no extra fee is required.

Update: Version 1.9.5 was first released October 12th with a build# of 12548, but was updated on Oct 19th with build #12601, which addresses an issue fetching Facebook photos.

Thanks for using Xobni!

Download the Latest Xobni Now

Xobni 1.9: Improved Outlook 2010 Beta Compatibility, A New Way to Win Xobni Plus, and More

We’re proud to announce that Xobni 1.9.0 (build 9662) is now available. This version is strongly recommended for anyone using Outlook 2010 beta (32-bit), and anyone interested in putting the latest and greatest Xobni improvements to work! Download it now, or read more about the latest changes.

(All features mentioned below are new since version 1.8.5 build 9142):

Improved Outlook 2010 Beta Compatibility

• The Xobni sidebar displays more reliably and consistently for various view configurations of Outlook 2010 beta (32-bit). Of course, we will fully support all versions of Outlook 2010 when Microsoft releases them for sale to the public.
• Installer screen is now more informative when installing Xobni into Outlook 2010 (screenshot)

Note: If you have a 64-bit operating system, and would like to test Outlook 2010 beta + Xobni today, simply install the popular 32-bit version of Outlook 2010 beta and then install Xobni.

Brand New “Out of Box” Experience

• If you install Xobni for the first time, you’ll see a new video display inside the sidebar (no more video pop-up). We’re really proud of it! See it in full size here.
• If you’d like to share fun facts with your contacts, we now open a message for you to customize instead of sending the email right away.

Improved Invitations (the Heart Button)

(Just click the heart button at the bottom of Xobni to see these improvements)

• Brand-new interface for inviting contacts to join Xobni, including photos and improved suggestions (based on Xobni Rank and whether they’ve sent you mail using Outlook)
• Users will also randomly receive the chance to win Xobni Plus when they invite others.

Twitter

• If signed in to the Twitter Extension, more data is shown about each Twitter name to help you choose the right one for your Xobni contacts — just hover over each name to see more information (you only need to do this once per contact).
• Twitter feeds are checked more often (every two minutes)

Better Automatic Phone Number Extraction

• Better recognition of phone numbers and fax numbers
• Filtering out more conference call numbers and bridge lines

Productivity Enhancements



• This may be a big time savings for many of our users: Now you can right-click on an email anywhere in Xobni to open that message in a new Outlook window (instead of clicking through to see it in detail in Xobni first).
• Support for the “shift-delete”, “shift-insert,” and “control-insert” keyboard shortcuts for cut, paste, and copy in the Xobni search bar
• The “Copy Email” command now copies the date of the email and everyone in the to: line.
• Photos and job titles for your highest-ranked contacts are fetched as soon as you install Xobni (instead of waiting till you access their Xobni profiles)
• Other minor bug fixes and performance improvements

Whew! Please continue to let us know how we can keep improving your productivity through the Xobni Community, and thank you to everyone who participated in the topics that helped inform today’s update.


General info: After you download, you will be prompted to close Outlook and the new Xobni version will be installed. All of your data (merges, contact information entries) will be maintained, no matter what version you are using currently.

If you have already purchased Xobni Plus, this download will simply update your software. You will not need to sign in again and no extra fee is required.

Thanks for using Xobni!

Download the Latest Xobni Now

Xobni 1.8.5: Major Improvements for All, and Free 'Links Exchanged' Upgrade for Xobni Plus Members

As a few have heard via TechCrunch, or while test-driving the Xobni Salesforce Extension, a new improved version of Xobni has been in the works. Xobni 1.8.5 (build 9142) is packed with useful improvements for everyone, including a brand-new feature that is free to existing Xobni Plus members. Download it now or read more about the latest enhancements.



(All features mentioned below are new since version 1.8.3 build 8997):

Links Exchanged (Xobni Plus feature)

• Instantly see a list of links you have exchanged with a contact, ordered by date. Easily filter the list by URL.
• Right-click any link in Xobni to preview and access the original message that contained it.
• Links contained in any Xobni message search are now shown separately, for easy scanning.

Laptop-Friendly Tabbed Interface

• New tabbed interface makes better use of your limited screen space and allows for more resizing and flexibility within Xobni
• View a familiar summary of your communication with a contact, or switch tabs to show only one type of data (thanks to alpha testers for their feedback with this).
• Filter the items in any tab with a quick search (Xobni Plus users have access to more advanced options)
• More compact “business card” area
• Extensions (such as Twitter and Facebook) can be resized to show more information. The LinkedIn, Hoover’s, and Salesforce extensions have been redesigned to take advantage of this as well (To get the Salesforce extension, please follow the instructions here).
• Fans of the original panel-style interface can still switch back in the Xobni options.

Improved Phone Number Extraction and Display

• Xobni is now smarter about finding the right phone number for your contacts in their emails.
• A new “i” icon appears next to phone numbers that are automatically extracted from emails by Xobni. Clicking this will show you the text that the number came from. Numbers from your Outlook Contacts, or numbers that you edited yourself, do not have this icon.
• Phone numbers are de-duplicated, and Outlook Contacts numbers are given higher prominence (thanks to cassianofonseca, Fred Greco, and Rob)

Productivity Enhancements – Saving You More Time

• Click the folder icon when viewing a message to jump to that folder in Outlook (thanks James, Nick, and others for the idea). Please note that the message itself will not be selected in Outlook.
• Enhanced drag-and-drop support for messages, conversations, and attachments. Drag any email, email thread, or attachment to any other window.
• Drag messages to folders to add a copy of that message to the target folder.
• Right-click any message to copy it and paste it into a new message as an attachment instead of as text.

Other Features & Fixes

• New “share” button in the Xobni Statistics tab allows an easy way to show someone what time of day they most email you. “Hey, look what a night person you are!”
• Direct Messages are now available in the Twitter extension (just click the “D” button when available)
• Email addresses sent to you in message bodies are now indexed and available in people search. This is especially helpful when trying to see if you know anyone at a given company — just type their domain name into Xobni’s search and you might be surprised at whom you already know!
• Bug fix: Adding LinkedIn contacts that were more than three levels away from you works more reliably (thanks Daniel)
• Other minor bug fixes and performance improvements

General info: After you download, you will be prompted to close Outlook and the new Xobni version will be installed. If you’re already using Xobni 1.8, it is recommended that you re-index your mail to see all Links Exchanged. Simply select “Index Outlook Mail” from the Xobni menu to complete the index. All of your data (merges, contact information entries) will be maintained, no matter what version you are using currently.

If you have already purchased Xobni Plus, this download will simply update your software. You will not need to sign in again and no extra fee is required.

Thanks again for your feedback and thank you for using Xobni!

Bug fix update available for Xobni and Xobni Plus (1.8.3 build 8997)

Working together with our dedicated and helpful users, we have uncovered and fixed two issues in Xobni 1.8.

Xobni 1.8.3 build 8997 is a minor bug fix release and is recommended for anyone experiencing the issues below. It is available now at http://www.xobni.com/download/latest, and includes the following changes since builds 8559 and 8734:

1) Crash Fixes for Some Plug-in Conflicts

If you have been experiencing any crashing in Outlook after installing Xobni, please try this build. We have focused on resolving conflicts with other Outlook plug-ins, including Symantec Enterprise Vault. Thanks to “Gemster,” Mike Maccana, Ralf Vissers and many others for helping us identify and test this fix via our support community.

2) First-run startup screen now only happens on first run

For a handful of new Xobni 1.8 users, a “Welcome to Xobni 1.8; now with Xobni Plus!” screen was appearing every time they started Outlook. Wow, that was annoying… and completely unintentional. This is fixed. Thanks to Jay Johnson and others for reporting this issue.

General info: After you download, you will be prompted to close Outlook and the new Xobni version will be installed. If you’re already using Xobni 1.8, no new mail indexing will be required. All of your data (merges, contact information entries) will be maintained, no matter what version you are using currently.

If you have already purchased Xobni Plus, this download will simply update your software. You will not need to sign in again and no extra fee is required.

Thanks again for your feedback and thank you for using Xobni!

Xobni now featuring Twitter!

Tonight we’re launching a feature we’ve wanted to launch for a while and one which we’ve been using internally with much glee. Twitter is now integrated with Xobni. When you click on an Outlook email message from a contact, that contact’s Xobni profile will now contain their recent tweets. You can reply, retweet, follow, view that contact’s Twitter profile, or even post a new tweet. This feature will be a powerful addition to the existing integrations we have with Facebook, LinkedIn, Hoover’s, Skype, and Yahoo! Mail. The integration of web and email data about your contacts makes for a powerful 360-degree view of your relationships.

How To Get Twitter in Xobni
Existing Xobni and Xobni Plus users must download the new version of Xobni for the Twitter extension to appear. This is a free update for everyone, and your Xobni Plus status will be retained once the update is installed.

Functionality
• See a list of recent tweets for every contact– right inside Outlook
• Reply to a tweet
• ReTweet
• Follow or unfollow a contact on Twitter
• Post a new Twitter status update from within Outlook

The Twitter extension will appear on the far right side of the extensions section in Xobni profiles. You can view this extension by clicking on the Twitter icon. Xobni will use the contact’s name to search for possible twitter accounts. Select the account that matches, or you can manually enter the Twitter name for the contact you are viewing. Once you select or enter a person’s Twitter name, every time you view a contact’s Xobni profile you’ll see their most recent tweets. From any screen inside the extension you’ll be able to login to your own Twitter account which will allow you to reply to tweets or post your own Twitter updates instantly inside of Outlook.

We are constantly looking for new ways to complete Xobni profiles with more information about your relationship with your contacts – whether that information is from your inbox or from the web. We hope you enjoy the latest step in making this vision complete.

Detailed list of features and changes in Xobni 1.8.3 (build 8559 and 8734) since build 8135:

Search Improvements

• Search speed increased dramatically (2-5 times faster depending on the search type)
• Directly access the advanced search builder by clicking on the big magnifying glass icon (previous builds required you to type text first) (thanks to Joe Myrick for the suggestion)
• Attachment results moved above tasks and calendar items

Extension Updates

• New Twitter extension
• Reorder or hide individual extension tabs (accessible through arrow button to the right of the tabs) (thanks to Hans van Leeuwen for the suggestion)

Other Changes

• Windows 7 compatibility fully tested and now added to our list of supported system configurations
• Xobni menu ordering changed slightly to be the same when accessed from top of Outlook or bottom of Xobni
• More detailed Xobni Plus data is shown to Xobni users in search results and AutoSuggest

Bug Fixes

• AutoSuggest menu displays more consistently
• Outlook keyboard shortcuts are passed through to Outlook more consistently when Xobni is being used
• Fixed occasional Outlook hang when sending mail (available since build 8175)
• Fixed occasional Outlook slow shutdown (available since build 8175)
• Many other minor bug fixes & stability improvements

Note: builds 8559 and 8734 are identical. The different build numbers are used for internal purposes.

Free minor update available for Xobni and Xobni Plus (1.8.3 build 8135)

Thank you for making the latest version of Xobni and Xobni Plus a huge success.  We’ve been listening closely to your feedback via the Xobni Community on Get Satisfaction and Xobni Support. Today an update is available that fixes a handful of issues reported by our loyal and extremely helpful users.

Xobni 1.8.3 build 8135 is a minor update and is available now at http://www.xobni.com/download.

Changes between this release and the original Xobni 1.8 release:

Search Improvements

• Accented and international characters can now be found via search  (thanks to our community for reporting this).
• Search now correctly finds phrases with upper-case characters
• New icon for emails in search results that were sent by you ( vs )
• Dashes in attachment names show up more reliably in search results
• Journal entries no longer appearing as half-indexed mail items; removed completely

AutoSuggest Improvements (AutoSuggest is a Xobni Plus feature)

• AutoSuggest has been greatly improved all around, especially with regards to filling in the proper name/email when a name is selected for some Exchange configurations
• Deletion of Outlook’ email suggestions in AutoSuggest is now possible (just use the “delete” key after using the down arrow to select the Outlook suggestion you’d like to delete).

Contacts Improvements

• Outlook Contacts’ names are used in the Xobni profile more reliably
• If there are two phone numbers in Outlook Contacts, both show up in Xobni (instead of just one)

Other Improvements

• Xobni displays better with various DPI monitor settings
• People with IMAP-only Outlook configurations will not see “locked” messages as often when using the free version of Xobni (reported in the Xobni Community)
• The “heavy” email indexing process is smarter about waiting until you are not using your computer to begin
• Certain key commands for other programs now re-enabled and not blocked by Xobni
• Improved Xobni Plus account access and activation from the Options menu
• Assorted performance improvements and minor bug fixes

After you download, you will be prompted to close Outlook and the new Xobni version will be installed.  If you’re already using Xobni 1.8, no new mail indexing will be required.  All of your data (merges, contact information entries) will be maintained, no matter what version you are using currently.

If you have already purchased Xobni Plus, this download will simply update your software and you will not need to sign in again and no extra fee is required.

Existing users will not be automatically updated to this build, as we are working on even more fixes for an “auto-update” release in the near future.

Thanks again for your feedback and thank you for using Xobni!

Announcing Xobni Plus – Xobni’s most powerful Outlook search tool ever

When we ask Xobni users why they love Xobni they say a lot of really nice things, but a universal truth is that our users love Xobni search. Here’s just a sample of the comments we see on Twitter:

Thank god for #xobni I found a very important email that I thought I lost! @jasonmun

Xobni beats Outlook’s native search. Knocks it out of the park. @danieljohnsonjr

Xobni really kicks serious butt in outlook. just saved me at least an hour of pain searching for mail and figuring out file transfer history. @madguy000

I can’t live without Xobni anymore. It beats any desktop search for emails and their attachments. @paullaberge

Xobni is ingenious for fast searching through email archives – no sorting will beat search speed. Outlook doesn’t match in speed @improvedk

Today, we take Xobni search to a whole new level with Xobni Plus. The features of Xobni Plus, our first premium product, were created directly from the feedback of our users. You wanted phrase search – we made it. You wanted support for Boolean searches – done. You want to search appointments and tasks – you got it. You want to search Xobni’s massive address book in new places – watch this.

Xobni Plus users get these exclusive benefits:

• An advanced search query builder
• The ability to search within conversations and networks
• Support for phrases and Boolean queries
• Xobni Rank-powered AutoSuggest
• Advanced conversation and network filtering
• As well as our new top level premium technical support for one year

See a full feature comparison here.

Pricing and Availability
We’ve made the price tag on Xobni Plus super affordable so it’s accessible to as many users as possible.

Xobni Plus can be purchased for $29.95. This license gets you all of the power of Xobni Plus on one computer and premium technical support for a year. Individuals that want to use Xobni on multiple computers can purchase additional licenses for $9.95.

Companies and groups can buy packs of multiple licenses for a discount. For volume discounts, go here.

Our existing free service will continue to provide the same functionality with additional improvements listed below. Those using the current free version of Xobni can upgrade to Xobni Plus by downloading the new version here (all of your Xobni settings and configurations will be retained through the upgrade)

Improvements to Xobni’s Free Product
We also continued to invest in our free offering over the last quarter. The newest version of Xobni’s free offering can be downloaded here and includes the following improvements:

• 500,000 company profiles from Hoover’s
• New search UI – including photos for people results, attachment file name search, and new email search results
• New hover tip design for conversation and mail view
• Search performance enhancements
• From the new free version of Xobni users can start a 14-day free trial of Xobni Plus at any time

New Xobni Facebook Extension

Hello Friends,

We have pushed live a new Xobni Facebook extension. For those of you that don’t know our naming ontology, extensions are the 3rd party information area that appears in the Xobni sidebar below the business card section.

The extensions show you information from Facebook, LinkedIn, Hoovers as well as stats from your email history. The cool thing about these extensions is that they are like mini websites, so we are able to update them on our servers and our users can see new feature without having to install a new version of Xobni.

On Monday, Facebook extended their API to allow profile streams to be accessed via the API. What does this mean for Xobni users? Now the data in the Facebook extension in your Xobni sidebar is even more relevant and more real time. You will see recent status updates, pictures, wall posts, and other information that appears on your friend’s facebook profiles. You will also be able to comment and “like” these items from within Xobni. Our hope is that this information will allow you to build stronger and more informed relationships inside email.

This new extension will automatically be pushed live across all Xobni users within a few days. If you want to see it immediately, you will have to clear the cache in Internet Explorer. You can do that by following these steps:

1. Open Internet Explorer
2. Tools > Internet Options > General Tab
3. Click “Delete…” under “Browsing History”
4. Click “Delete all…”
5. Close IE
6. Restart Outlook.

We announced this feature, and have received some great press.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/163977/xobni_meets_facebook_right_inside_outlook.html

http://venturebeat.com/2009/04/27/xobni-brings-facebook-streams-into-outlook/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/27/feed-me-xobni-going-live-with-full-facebook-stream-tonight/

http://mashable.com/2009/04/27/xobni-facebook-stream/

Please pay us the greatest compliment by twittering, blogging, or emailing this story to friends that are suffering in Outlook without Xobni. Here is an easy link to this blog post: http://bit.ly/A7rpC

Xobni brings the internet into Outlook… 4 ways your Outlook will never be the same

Xobni users can now search their free Yahoo! Mail from inside the Xobni Outlook sidebar, view Facebook profile data, browse Hoover’s company profiles, and instantly initiate Skype chats and calls.

The official press release can be found here.

We have been quiet on our blog for a while, but the Xobni office has been buzzing away. Today we are launching the results of the last four months of hard work – Xobni has partnered with Yahoo! Mail, Facebook, Skype, and Hoover’s to bring in-depth relationship data and communication services into the Xobni Outlook sidebar. We have also extended our Linkedin integration, improved numerous elements of the Xobni interface, and made new steps in improving Xobni’s performance.

The new version (1.6.3) is available for immediate download

Current Xobni users will be automatically updated over the next several weeks. To force an upgrade immediately, please visit http://www.xobni.com/upgrade.php?version=5378

Here are four reasons to try the latest Xobni today:

1. Search your Yahoo! Mail without leaving Outlook

All email stored in your Yahoo! Mail account is fully searchable using Xobni, for FREE! Contacts, email, and attachments from Yahoo! Mail accounts are available within Xobni Yahoo! Mail search results now appear seamlessly displayed alongside Outlook email.

2. Instant Facebook Status and Photos

Xobni’s sidebar displays key Facebook information to keep up with connections, including: Status messages Profile picture Latest photo uploads and tagged photos Network memberships

3. Smart Skype Integration

Xobni’s sidebar now enables the following Skype functionality from within the sidebar: Skype chat Skype to Skype calls Skype Out calls SMS Xobni’s sidebar also displays the following: Online/offline status for Skype contacts Automatic discovery of the Skype name for the people that send you email

4. Hoover’s arms you with instant research on your contacts’ employers

Xobni displays senders’ company information based on email domain inside the Xobni profile Company information displayed includes the official company description in Hoover’s, size of the company, headquarters location, and sales figures.

As always, Xobni remains highly customizable so that you always have the power to choose the features and integrations that work for you.

Check out these cool new features in our latest product video

We continue to focus on improving the core Xobni experience and improving the existing features our users have come to love. Today’s announcement reiterates our commitment to providing context and efficiency to your email relationships.

Please helps us spread the word about Xobni and these great new features by Digging this blog post here: http://digg.com/microsoft/Xobni_did_it_4_reasons_your_Outlook_will_never_be_the_same

Thanks!
The Xobni Team

Xobni Launches Public Beta

Today is an exciting day for everyone at Xobni. After seven months of invite-only beta, and over two years of product development, we’re proud to announce that Xobni is now publicly available for anyone to download. Xobni can be downloaded for free here.

The official press release for our launch can be found here.

Today’s New York Times is covering our successful beta program and the public launch of Xobni here.

It has taken a lot of hard work to get to this point. Our team has grown from two guys in an apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts to a group of 14 dedicated team members in San Francisco that call Xobni home.

While the Xobni team has been working hard to make Xobni a success, our users also deserve a lot of credit. Your feedback has been essential in helping us to improve the performance and features of Xobni over the past seven months. We have responded to thousands of support and feedback emails from the over 50,000 individuals that have downloaded Xobni during our seven month closed beta period. We have had several dozen beta users visit us at the Xobni headquarters for user studies and another several dozen users have done remote performance and configuration tests with our engineers.

We will continue to work hard to improve the Xobni experience. Xobni has done a lot to improve our users’ email lives, but email and personal information still have a long way to go. Xobni and its users still have a long way to go, and we wouldn’t want it any other way.

For Current Xobni Beta Users

If you are currently running Xobni it will automatically update to the latest version. If you need to re-download Xobni, you can download it instantly here.

Please let your friends and colleagues know that a better Outlook email experience awaits them at Xobni.com.

Thanks!