I am very excited to announce the release of Xobni for BlackBerry. It makes managing your address book a thing of the past – You will never need to “Add a Contact” again. Early feedback from our alpha users is that they have stopped using their native address books completely and use only Xobni for BlackBerry.

The power of Xobni for BlackBerry is found in exposing connections you never knew you had as well as in the depth of the profiles that are created. All profiles are created automatically and are as complete as the information we have to complete them – including recent emails, phone calls, SMS messages, upcoming and past meetings, and the network for each of your contacts. You can even view information and images from your contacts using the LinkedIn and Facebook. Everything you need is a single click away, so you can immediately contact anyone the way you want.

With Xobni Rank, we learn who you communicate with most often and order your address book by that – you always have the most important people at the top. Search for “Mike” and even if there are 20 Mikes in your Xobni address book, the most important one rises instantly.

We built our first mobile application on the BlackBerry platform because we could deeply integrate within the native OS to provide an impactful and seamless experience for our users. If you’re composing a message using the native BlackBerry compose screen, you can access all of your Xobni contacts with a flick up of your trackpad/ball. We love being able to improve our customers’ existing work-flow instead of forcing them to change it.

The icing on the cake is Xobni One. Xobni One leverages our new cloud-based service to connect Xobni for Outlook and Xobni for BlackBerry, giving you all your Xobni contacts on your phone, where you need them most. A separate post on the magic of Xobni One is coming soon.

This is the stuff that excites me – Creating great products that solve real problems!

Learn More about Xobni for BlackBerry

At Xobni, we’ve dedicated ourselves to helping you work smarter, not harder, by developing powerful email products to reduce the time you spend digging around your inbox so you can focus on…well, whatever it is you were actually hired to do (we assume it wasn’t to search unsuccessfully in Outlook ).

In the years we’ve spent in this space, we’ve accumulated quite a bit of knowledge about email and workplace productivity in general, and rather than sit on what we know, we want to share it with you, our valuable users.  To that end, we’re excited to announce our first-ever Live Twitter Q&A, during which we’ll spend a concentrated hour fielding as many of your questions as we can.  We hope you’ll join us for our inaugural Work Smart Wednesday:

Xobni Live Twitter Q&A
Work Smart Wednesday, March 3rd
11:30AM-12:30PM PST

It’s easy to join the conversation: Direct your questions to @xobni and end them with the hashtag #WorkSmarter between 11:30AM and 12:30PM PST this Wednesday.  Questions tweeted using Xobni’s Twitter extension will receive priority, so if you can, post your questions from Xobni.

If you’re not available then, write your question on Twitter or as a comment on this blog post (please tag with #WorkSmarter and keep it <140 characters) ahead of time, and we’ll answer as many of those as time permits during the Q&A as well.

Example:

• BillGates: @xobni I want to impress my coworkers with my taste in Outlook tools–what’s the easiest way to invite them to use Xobni? #WorkSmarter

• Xobni: To @BillGates Open up the Xobni Options menu and click “Invite Users”. Select your invitees there & get a chance to win Xobni Plus for free!

Of course, we’re always listening to you on Twitter (you should take a moment to follow us if you haven’t already), but we’re especially excited to dedicate this entire hour just to answering your top questions.  Get your questions ready, and we’ll see you there!

I was playing around with Google’s books search the other day, and I couldn’t help but search for Xobni. It happens that Xobni appears in dozens of books. Some we knew about, and other we never expected. We thought it’d be fun to share a few:

Linkedin For Dummies by Joel Elad
Xobni is a great tool for heavy email users, and even becomes more powerful if you use Xobni’s LinkedIn integration. LinkedIn For Dummies is a how-to book on how to get the most out of LinkedIn. Xobni is definitely a great way to get the most out of LinkedIn. Joel includes download instructions, features, and a lot more about Xobni in his book.

Upstarts!: How GenY Entrepreneuers are Rocking the World of Business by Donna Fenn.
In her book Donna talks about the features of Xobni’s Outlook product, but also tells the business story of how Xobni was founded, funded, and how it flourished.

Human Computer Interaction: New trends by Julie A. Jacko.
There are several academic books that reference Xobni and the new paradigms we introduced to email. It is quite an honor to be mentioned in academic work.

And finally, Xobni is featured in the New York Times bestseller The 4-Hour Workweek: Expanded and Updated by Tim Ferris. Here is a quote from the book:

“It [Xobni] offers many features, but the most relevant to this chapter is its ability to indentify “hotspots,” or periods of time when you receive the bulk of e-mail from your most important contacts. These “hotspots” are batching times that will enable you to keep critical contacts (clients, bosses, etc.) smiling even while you reduce checking e-mail to 1-3 times per day.”

We talk about many of Xobni’s features here on our blog, but we don’t often talk about the analytics engine that sits beneath the software. Tim has latched on to one way he suggests that his readers can use Xobni’s analytics features to work smarter, not harder.

We thought being in this many books was pretty cool, so we wanted to share. We’re honored.

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

Valentine’s Day is upon us and we’re doing a giveaway to those we love most – our customers.  <blush>

Tweet about your love for Xobni and enter to be one of the 14 winners to receive two Xobni Plus licenses – one for you and one for your Valentine (or anyone you think would love Xobni as much as you do).

To enter, simply go to this page and click the “post to twitter” button.  Winners will be randomly selected this week, finishing up on the big day of love.

Hey there friends and fans of BlackBerry!

We just wanted to give you a quick update on where we are with the Xobni for Blackberry product as well as some exciting news. We really appreciate the excitement and anticipation for the product and can’t wait to share it with you!

So what’s the good news? The good news is that we’re in alpha and really close to having a truly compelling Xobni for BlackBerry product. We need your help! We’ve got the product built and we’re all using it internally (and loving it).

To help move this process along, we’re looking for some of our most passionate Xobni friends to dive in and take it for a spin.

If you’re up for the alpha, please send us an email. Don’t forget to put BlackBerry alpha in the subject field and then tell us what model BlackBerry you have and whether or not you use Xobni for Outlook.

While we may not be able to include everyone in the alpha, we’ll sure try.

Disclaimer: IT IS an alpha. We’ve done a pretty good job buttoning up our product but we certainly expect some bumps in the road as we scale, so make sure you can tolerate some (hopefully small) hiccups if you want to participate. Thanks in advance for your help! We’re committed to reinventing the address book for smartphones and are one step closer today.

A few weeks ago we took up camp in Twitter’s old office space on Bryant Street in San Francisco.  We loved the location of our last office, but we moved into that space with 4 people in 2007 and found ourselves bursting at the seams when we finally left with nearly 30 team members crammed into that space.

Now we are at 539 Bryant, and we love it!

In addition to the awesome views, sprawling space, and great lighting, we’re also hoping some of Twitter’s good karma will rub off on us. 

As we were packing our desks, Adam (cofounder) and I took some time to reflect on the offices of Xobni over the past four years.

“Office” #1

Adam started Xobni in his dorm room at MIT back in 2006.  As you can imagine, he clocked lots of hours trying to understand the wealth of data hidden in email.  A few months later I got a call from Adam. After some persuasion on Adam’s part I moved from the University of Maryland, where I dropped out of grad school, to focus on turning this email project into a business.  I moved into MIT’s East Campus dorm with Adam.   We lived and worked in that 12 foot by 12 foot space.

“Office” #2

With school on hold* for both of us, and the dorm room getting a bit crowded, we rented an apartment near Harvard Square and were able to fully commit to this business we now called Xobni.  And that we did.  We worked all waking hours, usually until 5 or 6am when we’d rush to bed at daybreak, hoping to fall asleep before the sun would start to convince us otherwise.  It was a crazy time.

“Office” #3

When our summer lease ran out, we temporarily moved into the apartment of fellow Y Combinator startup founder, and now Xobni employee, Bryan Kennedy.  Again, back in a cramped space, but this time with about $100k of angel funding in the bank.  We began to contemplate our future.   It wasn’t long before we realized we needed to be in the Valley if we wanted to give Xobni the greatest chance for success.  We made the decision over a weekend and on Monday we started the 3,000 mile drive to California.

“Office” #4

Office #4 was a “deluxe apartment in the sky” at The Crystal Towers in San Francisco.  This “office” still has probably the best view of any office I’ll ever have.  The place was so great that many other Y Combinator startups moved into the building.  It became known as the “Y Scraper.”

Now that we were in San Francisco and closer to the action, it wasn’t long until we raised our first big round of funding, $4M bucks.  Finally with cash in the bank we decided we could do two things: hire employees and get a real office.

The employees came first.  Greg and Gabor.  They both moved into the Y Scraper.  They worked out of our apartment with us.

Office #5 (no quotes this time!)

Finally in June of 2007, over a year after starting the company and after working out of 4 different “offices” we moved into our first legitimate office** at 211 Sutter Street, one block from Union Square.  This is where we launched Xobni to the world.  Everything feels like it’s been on fast-forward since then.

Office 6

Four million downloads and many employees later, here we sit at 539 Bryant Street in a space that will be able to hold us for at least the next year or two.  (Note: we are growing fast – check out these current positions we are hiring for.)   Looking back, there’s not one move that we regret.   It has been a lot of fun and we and even a bit nostalgic to think about the places we’ve called Xobni’s home.

* We never went back. 

** One that wasn’t our primary residence (though we did sleep our fair share of nights in the office).

Photo credits (new office): Mitch Aidelbaum

Our friends at RIM kindly invited us to show our upcoming BlackBerry app and integration at the BlackBerry booth (South Hall #30851) at CES this week.  While talking for hours on end day after day about the same thing can get exhausting, talking to our users and being reminded of the need for Xobni on mobile devices has been rejuvenating and encouraging.

We’ve also received some love from mobile/BlackBerry media and bloggers.  Inside BlackBerry posted a demo of the product, CrackBerry did a great roundup of the day, and LAPTOP Magazine listed us as a candidate for the CES Readers Choice Awards in the smart phone apps category.  Vote for us, please!

If you find yourself lost in the madness that is CES this week/end, find your way to us.  We’d love to see you.  And if you happen to practice reflexology, we promise to give you extra Xobni love.

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!

Well, the day came and went before we even had time to boast about it, so we’ll do it now.  Yesterday, Microsoft named us the Startup of the Day.  Yip yip!

Our love affair with Microsoft goes way back.  It started when we created a product that makes Outlook infinitely better, then spiked when Bill Gates demoed Xobni last year at Microsoft Office’s Developer’s Conference.  We were recently chosen to be part of BizSpark 100, and are very excited about being the Startup of the Day (yesterday).

To read the BizSpark interview with Jeff (our CEO), click here.