Xobni (Inbox spelled backwards), officially opened to the public yesterday.  If you use Microsoft Outlook, it will change your life…  Xobni is a utility for Outlook that analizes your email – things like:

• Who emails you most and when
• Who responds fastest to your emails
• Who you respond to fastest

Xobni makes it easy for you to find files you’ve exchanged via email – regardless of where they’re buried within the thousands of emails in your inbox.

Besides being a really valuable productivity tool, it turns your inbox into a social network.  Without having to type a thing, in two clicks, you can initiate and send an email to anyone in your “network” (i.e. anyone you’ve exchanged email with).  There are also pre-populated notes that enable you to:

• Ask a friend/colleague for their phone number, or
• Request time on a friend/colleague’s calendar – Xobni pulls down data from your calendar and inserts your availability into an email… You can even customize what days/times you want Xobni to search for your availability.

Downsides?  I hate to admit it, but Xobni is actually making me like using Outlook!  The only thing I dislike about Xobni is that it’s not available in more places.  You can’t use it on a Mac or or web-based mail systems like Gmail (sigh).  There is no mobile application or WAP compatability, so it doesn’t work on a mobile phone.

What would I like to see in the future besides broader availability on other email platforms?

• More control over email templates… I’d love to be able to create my own email templates.  For example… “Thank you” emails that I can send to people that, say, had me to dinner, or who I invited to a party.
• Integrations to my favorite web sites. For example… I’d like to be able to set-up an evite from within Xobni and send it out to everyone on my network.  Even better, I’d like Xobni to track my interactions on all of my favorite social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) AND multiple email accounts AND IM AND phone calls (i.e. with a mobile integration)
• Group/ List functionality – that is – the ability to set up groups of people and have the ability to email them all at the same time. (i.e. my “best friend group” my “project X group”, etc.)
• Greater integration with Calendars and Address Books.  For example, I’d love to see the scheduling template be more interactive and actually allow a user to book time on my calendar, without me having to enter the time into the calendar, upon receiving their reply to my email.  I’d love it to work like Outlook invites work… Allow recipients to click on one of the available times listed in an email and automatically book it.

Yep – I think I’m love.  Get it, and it will change the way you look at your inbox.