Out is In: Xobni + LinkedIn = Job titles, Employer, and Pictures
Today we’re launching a new version of Xobni that we’re very excited about. Early during the life of Xobni we realized that email is about people, but no existing email clients gave people the priority they deserve. We quickly seized on what we believe is a huge opportunity to build a more socially aware email environment. We’ve long believed this idea extends beyond email to other sources of relationship data, both on the desktop and on the web.
For our users, Xobni has become both a way to organize an overloaded inbox and a way to manage relationships. Xobni’s capacity as a relationship management tool is greatly enhanced by today’s announcement that LinkedIn profile data is now visible in Xobni profiles. Integrating data from LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional social network, will dramatically improve Xobni’s utility as a relationship management tool and further integrate email with data from the web.
See the official press release here
This new version of Xobni (version 1.4) is being automatically updated on existing users’ machines and is also available for immediate download at www.xobni.com/download
What you will find in version 1.4:
LinkedIn integration
Xobni users will now see LinkedIn public profile data automatically displayed in Xobni profiles. You will see the job title and the employing company of the person you are emailing with. Clicking on the LinkedIn logo will take you to that contact’s LinkedIn profile. Also, LinkedIn profile pictures will be automatically displayed in the Xobni sidebar. We’ve been using this feature internally for several weeks, and having this information at your fingertips when you are interacting with a new person is immensely powerful.
We have plans to extend this feature with more information from LinkedIn that becomes available when you are logged-in to their service. Make sure to verify that your LinkedIn profile and picture are set to “public” so that other Xobni users can see your pretty LinkedIn picture when you send them an email.
Keyboard shortcuts
This feature is for our power Xobni users – thanks for your
feedback! We have implemented the
following keyboard shortcuts for use with Xobni.
These keyboard shortcuts function anytime the Xobni sidebar is showing (collapsed or open) and the main Outlook window has focus.
- Focus on the Xobni search box: Ctrl - [~]
- Collapse/Expand sidebar: Ctrl - Shift - [~]
- Email the person in sidebar: Ctrl - Alt - N (mirrors Outlook’s compose email: Ctrl-N)
- Go Back in the drilldown/search history: Ctrl - Backspace
Keyboard shortcuts for when the Xobni sidebar has focus:
- Go Back in the drilldown/search history: Backspace
Folder selection
Another feature many of our users want is the ability to select or deselect folders or outlook data stores that you want included in Xobni’s search results and person profiles.
Do you store important data in the deleted items folder? Do you want Xobni to index that folder? Now you can. Do you have a ton of old PSTs that you don’t want searched by Xobni? Now you can deselect those folders from our index:
After you’ve selected or deselected a folder, and only after we re-indexed your machine, the xobni search index will reflect the changes. Remember re-indexing occurs during idle times or when you manually force an indexing in the Xobni menu.
Performance improvements
We are constantly working to improve the performance of Xobni. We also work hard to limit our interaction with the native Outlook email client. We have made two great steps in improving both of these areas. We have improved the way by which we index new messages as they are sent and received. This improves the responsiveness of Outlook for users that experienced a slowdown when they were sending or receiving new messages. Also, we’ve made an improvement to the Xobni UI rendering. Xobni profiles that contain long histories of conversations and attachments now load much faster.
June 26th, 2008 at 1:54 am
[...] email management service Xobni has announced built in support for LinkedIn [...]
June 26th, 2008 at 5:08 am
Nice work.
Am especially loving the addition of Folder Selection - hurrah!!
Now going off to have a play…
June 26th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Please also include XING support. It’s similar to LinkedIn but is used in Europe (=standard networking tool)
http://www.xing.com
June 26th, 2008 at 9:41 am
When is the rollout for existing users expected to be complete? I’m a LinkedIn junkie and this is going to be amazing.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Will I need to download a new version of Xobni or will the app update itself? I too use LinkedIn a lot and this will be useful.
I also run the LinkedIn toolbar for Outlook which lets me send invitations directly to contact within emails. Will this update include this functionality as well?
June 26th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
[...] Xobni blog also suggests that future updates will provide further integration between the two services when [...]
June 26th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
@Vin: Your Xobni will update automatically today or over the weekend. You must restart outlook for the update to take effect.
June 26th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
The folder selection is huge, but the linkedIn additional is just awesome.
Thanks and keep up the good work.
June 26th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
@Peter: the rollout should be complete by Monday. If your Xobni is not updated by then, please make sure to restart Outlook.
June 26th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Linkin Integration is not picking up a lot of profiles. I’ve also had a few falsely identified linkedin connections.
It would be nice to be able to add my linkedin usename and passowrd so that it could search my connections first for a match.
Outside that, awsome update!
Wayne
June 26th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
thanks, performance improved a lot for me .
June 27th, 2008 at 2:43 am
[...] [Image Source: The Xobni Blog] [...]
June 27th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Xobni is more or less unknown in Germany. A incredible status for such a fantastic tool. Congratulations. Germany is the biggest e-recruiting market in Europe. Your tool offers a lot of possibilities for the HR Managers and applicants, to manage the process and communication.
But there are a lot of possibilities to make Xobni to a mixture of Social Networ, E-Mail and Recruiting tool. The integration of LinkedIn is wonderful, but should not be the last one of business networks and other service integrations.
I wrote today about my testing of Xobni in my Blog. If you allows links in your blog, you will find it here:http://www.blogaboutjob.de/2008/06/27/xobni-mein-neues-spielzeug/
The next step should be a German version too. You will find a great market here in Germany.
Best wishes from Cologne,
Thorsten
June 27th, 2008 at 8:57 am
It would be nice if somehow new contacts are automatically put into Outlook directory
June 27th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Does this version of Xobni support Windows XP SP3?
June 27th, 2008 at 11:45 am
I think I found a bug in Xobni or maybe I am missing something.
All employees have an html email signature, this is automatic when we create a new message. However when I click the “email” feature (under schedule time with..)
the email doesn’t pull my custom signature.
June 27th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Great to see these additions. For the power users, I would love to see search that extends beyond people based search - trying to find emails by categories or content (not tied to the sender) is still pretty hard
June 27th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Good idea! Can it be done for Facebook as well, please? So many more Facebook users have photos …
June 28th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
[...] Jeg har brugt Xobni i et par måneder, og her forleden blev det opdateret med en ny, sej funktion: Den henter ikke bare billeder og informationer fra Outlooks kontakt-liste, den integreres direkte med LinkedIn. Man kan læse mere om de nye funktioner på Xobnis blog. [...]
June 29th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Love the update!
Could you add a way to change the keyboard shortcuts? The ones with the tilde [~] don’t work for me, possibly because I have to press a modifier key for it on my keyboard layout.
June 29th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
I have my contacts in outlook organized in subfolders. They are all indexed by Xobni. Somehow, Xobni doesn’t link the the telephonenumbers in these folders with the sender of a e-mail, but suggest to search the phonenumber through the internet. Do I something wrong?
June 30th, 2008 at 6:28 am
The new version causes my Outlook to crash
I’m using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 SP3, Microsoft XP Professional; OS Version 5.1.2600 SP2.0
Can anyone help?
June 30th, 2008 at 8:28 am
This one (build 4023) had dropped performance down the tubes. It takes forever to switch profiles when you go from email to email (10 seconds?) and you just see those spinny things. Outlook03 SP3, XP SP2. 2GB ram, P4 3.something ghz.
June 30th, 2008 at 10:29 am
I’d like to hear something about the privacy policy as it is affected by the connection to Linked In. What information do they get from Xobni? Obviously there is some information about what email is being sent/received, how much?
June 30th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Yeh, it’s slowed my searching right down as well, takes ages to switch profile when I click on a new email.
Love the new functionality, but doesn’t always link to a LinkedIn profile even though i know my contact has one.
June 30th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Windows XP SP3 users:
Is this a general problem for all of you?
June 30th, 2008 at 11:15 am
The new version consistently crashes my outlook when I minimize the bar to the right and then try to enlarge it.
June 30th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Me again,
XOBNI works fine again (i.e. no more Outlook crashes) after you close the message that you have been upgraded. Strange but true.
Robert
June 30th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
So it does, Robert. So it does.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Good new features! I recommend you add Plaxo as well. I used LinkedIn for a while, but was disappointed that after I put so much info in, I got very little value back. Plaxo seems to provide more benefits.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I just crashed my Outlook after minimizing the sidebar and then attempting to expand it. And just did it again just to prove it out…
Nice…
Diable Xobni for now? If I re-install an older version, it will simply AutoUpdate it self again, and I will be back to square one. Will also attempt to disable the LinkedIn option and retry. Will advise.
2003 SP3 etc on XP Pro, AMD 3200 1gb Ram. Perhaps we have an issue…
June 30th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
My system froze once Outlook booted and Xobi loaded this morning. “Keyboard failure” and system froze that required restart. With the reboot, all systems are back to normal. Pure coincidence? I had never seen this “keyboard failure” issue before. XP, service pack 2.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I have a lot of old PST files that I would like indexed, but don’t want to keep loaded in outlook. is there a way to get the information from them with out keeping them in outlook?
June 30th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Hi, you should add an option to change shortcuts. It seems as if they do not work on e.g. german keyboard layouts, as the ~ is not on the same position as on US layouts.
June 30th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Same crashing problem !!
And wont let me minimise Xobni at all
I thought that a rescan may do the trick - so far has taken 15 minutes to do 6.3% it took less than that to do the entire box before!!
Have Xobni just hired the Vista development QA team?
July 1st, 2008 at 2:49 am
Great tool, Thanks.
Additional to LinkedIn I would like to see a Xing integration.
July 1st, 2008 at 4:27 am
Just like Robert who wrote on June 30th, 2008 at 11:37 am, also my Outlook kept crashing. When I closed the message that I had been upgraded, all was well.
Thanks to Robert for finding the solution to my problem!
July 1st, 2008 at 5:21 am
I tried what Phred said on the 30th and managed to crash my outlook. Its not a big issue for me as I don’t minimize it. I just did it to test it out, so its a definate bug.
Windows XP SP3, P4 2.8, 2gb ram
Another place it stalled for me big time is when I’m doing a search and get back thousands of results then I click the button which shows me 8000 more>>
It used to hang there instantly, but now it gets a little further and then hangs… Perhaps its not a great idea to show me all 8000 more, perhaps something like show me the next 100 would be better?
July 1st, 2008 at 6:40 am
In Germany we must insert the companies register number in the signature of the e-mail. And the german abridged word for the english phone or phonenumber is: “Tel.” or the whole word “Telefon”
Now we have the problem, that xobni displays the companies register number and not the Phonenumber of the senders.
Perhaps a bug that should be fixed in the future.
And yes, please take a look about the german social network XING. That is the most uses network here. It would be great to integrate the this service.
Otherwise, Xobni is fantastic. Makes sense and fun.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:23 am
of 5 done so far every minimize works but every expand make outlook shutdown, xp-sp2
July 1st, 2008 at 8:50 am
Yes, I have the same problem. Minimise works but Maximise of the XOBNI window crashes Outlook (2003).
July 1st, 2008 at 9:22 am
Found Robert’s message about closing the Upgrade Notification message and now all is okay.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:16 am
With the new version Outlook crashes (closes) if I collapse XOBNI
??
July 1st, 2008 at 10:17 am
And indeed, after closing the update message the problem solved.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:18 am
[...] Today, that appears to have taken a big step in the right direction with the release of version 1.4 which contains, among other improvements, performance boosts. I could not be more thrilled by any [...]
July 1st, 2008 at 10:21 am
[...] that appears to hit condemned a bounteous travel in the correct content with the promulgation of version 1.4 which contains, among another improvements, action boosts. I could not be more thrilled by some [...]
July 1st, 2008 at 10:42 am
Crashed my outlook when minimizing/expanding, but closing the upgrade announcement fixed problem. Thanks.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:45 pm
robert Said: “XOBNI works fine again (i.e. no more Outlook crashes) after you close the message that you have been upgraded. Strange but true.”
I got the same result, but closed the “Invite others” option.
Seems to be specific to the notification Part in general.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Xobni is crashing my Outlook 2007.
Did you guys talk to each other before this new version?
Can I delete it and use the old one, please? I’ve already read the you’ve been upgraded message, etc.
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:32 am
please also include integration with xing.com
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:39 am
Really excited about the LinkedIn integration - keep up the good work!
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:54 am
I have a linked-in profile, but it doesn’t detect me because, while I go by “Robert”, which is my middle name, in Outlook I’m listed as “Charles” (my first name). Long story, but the point is that it would be useful to know how Xobni detects Linked-In profiles and, if it misses one that I know exists, what can I do to add it?
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:57 am
Deep in the options, I found that the email address of the person in the Xobni view is sent anonymously to Linked-In and that’s how the connection is generated. What if the person’s email address in Linked-In differs from what is stored or accessible to Xobni? Editing the person’s Xobni contact info doesn’t help because I can’t edit either of the two email addresses stored for that person.
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Xing support would be great for European users.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:34 pm
The new version definitely has a drastic performance impact: there’s a severe drag on Outlook 2007, Vista SP1 w/ all current patches. The upgrade and invite notification windows are closed - which improved things slightly.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Also - switching from one message to another now causes Outlook’s CPU usage to spike by about 20%.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Xobni update working fine until I got onto a plane. Then Outlook would open for about a minute before crashing. Hoping that they release a fix for this soon rather than me uninstalling Xobni before my next flight!
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:07 am
Thanks for such a amazing work, please do include other Social Network integration as well. Like Orkut and many other.
Thanks for making such an amazing software.
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:24 am
Love the LinkedIn integration - keep up the good work!
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:16 pm
It would be terrific if Xobni could run horizontally across the bottom of outlook so it didn’t take up so much email reading space. This is especially important in Outlook 2007.
Otherwise great add on though!
July 6th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I’m new to xobni. The searching is great, so fast - how MS should have done their laughable “instant” search. But for me Xobni is mucking up my data - showing me phoned numbers randomly grabbed from some email - low data quality, low trust. I also don’t understand why it needs its own photo store when Outlook already has one. LinkedIn integration is great, but few people have photos - also Xobni doesn’t seem to be too smart about locating a LinkedIn profile for someone who has severl email addresses - e.g. I have three email addresses, and only emails from one of them correctly finds the LinkedIn profile. Many, many people have more than one email address - they need joining up. Most annoyingly for me though is that when I select an email from a contact with 3 email addresses (all listed as email1, email2, email3 in the outlook contact), Xobni doesn’t realise they’re all the same person. So instead of showing the CORRECT phone number from the contact, it picks on, shows the other two in the Network (not network, same person!!), and randomly plucks a phone number from some random email. It’s a great idea, but I just feel like the quality of data being displayed is not good enough. In particular, my Contacts are high quality, and Xobni seems to go off on a frolick and ignore the info I’ve carefully collated. If my Contacts say that three email addresses relate to the same person, Xobni should take that as a fact and display one profile, not three.
July 7th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Great job, I like this new addition to the Xobni addon.
For me, it’s a shame because I love Xobni but minimize my Outlook usage. I am a hardcore Mozilla Thunderbird user and I’m waiting to see it come out for Thunderbird.
Any word on when a beta for Thunderbird will be released?
Thanks again and keep up the good work!
~Joe
July 7th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Also, like I said earlier, providing contact details through LinkedIn is great; but a lot of my colleagues are also on Facebook. Is it possible to integrate with Facebook and fetch “Work” or “Business” phone numbers from their profiles?
Just a suggestion. Keep it up!
~Joe
July 12th, 2008 at 7:12 am
[...] The lastest edition integrates into Linkedin, pulling information from your friends and contacts directly from their LinkedIn profile. Full details of the the Xobni and LinkedIn integration can be found at Xobni blog. [...]
July 13th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
please add xing.com support!
LinkedIn isn’t widely used in Europe but Xing is.
July 15th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
@Wayne: I believe you’ll notice and increase in the number of profiles appearing. Linkedin had a bug in their API which has been addressed.
@EveryoneElse: This is not the proper place for support. Please visit: http://www.xobni.com/support for help in regards to crashing, slowdowns, etc. Thank you for your understanding and support!
July 15th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
@rob: Searching is based on email addresses. Make sure the email addresses you use are added to your linkedin profile.
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:22 pm
[...] many of you saw (we know because usage has been crazy!), we recently announced a deal with LinkedIn where you can seamlessly receive important information and photos of your contacts directly into [...]
July 28th, 2008 at 9:22 am
On UK keyboards, the shortcuts seem to be:
* Focus on the Xobni search box: Ctrl - [']
* Collapse/Expand sidebar: Ctrl - Shift - ['] (effectively Ctrl-[@])
August 1st, 2008 at 5:45 am
[...] and extend Xobni’s sidebar. This is what LinkedIn has had access to in order to achieve the recent integration with Xobni, and might be a less painful path to Outlook integration for other developers in the future. [...]
August 20th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
[...] task pane in the Outlook client. The application indexes your mail and links to web services (LinkedIn and Facebook). Adding a Custom Task Pane to Outlook is probably the easiest part of building an [...]