A few months ago, we showed the very beginnings of a Xobni application for BlackBerry at a mobile meet-up in San Francisco. While we weren’t expecting it to get broad attention given the closed environment, we were pleased that there was so much enthusiasm for the product.

Since then, we’ve been making great progress. However, the more we work with RIM, the more ideas we collectively come up with to make Xobni Mobile more useful to BlackBerry users. Expanded functionality has caused the development time line to extend. We are anxious to get Xobni Mobile in the hands of users soon. We didn’t plan on speaking again about our BlackBerry product until it was on the market, but then we were asked by RIM to demonstrate Xobni. They asked for an example of a compelling integration with the BlackBerry to show at their biggest developer conference, and we just couldn’t resist.

More details about Xobni Mobile

Update: Watch the video of Xobni’s demonstration at the BlackBerry Developer Conference Keynote.

At Xobni, we think that you should have access to every person that you need to reach, when you need to reach them. Surprisingly, there’s not an easy or quick way to do this on our phones now. Unlike a static address book of the people you have deliberately put in your Outlook contacts and/or mobile phonebook, Xobni for mobile will be more like your automatic address book made up of all the thousands of people you may have communicated with over the years. Our data tells us that the typical user has 5-10X the number of contacts in their email inbox versus their Outlook address book. If you put all of those contacts into your address book it would be, well, a bit overwhelming – imagine scrolling through 5,000 contacts! Enter Xobni Mobile…

Our coming mobile product will give you access to your whole automatic address book and maintain the integrity of your key daily contacts by not inundating you with details that you don’t need. We do this with Xobni Rank – a list of contacts, in ranked order, depending on the freshness and depth of your relationship.

Anyone that carries a smartphone knows the frustration of wanting to call or email someone you have communicated with but not having quick and easy access to their contact data because it is buried somewhere in an email. Our application helps you quickly find anyone you’ve ever communicated with, along with context to your relationship, in ranked order. For example, most people know more than one Mike. Xobni Rank delivers every Mike you know in ranked order based on how often and how recently you communicated with him. So, the Mike Zander, whom you just spoke with yesterday and email one time per week will be listed above the Mike Andler, who was CC’d in an email once by your coworker. Cool, eh? Manually typing in contact information is so 2008!

We’re thrilled to have been on stage today with our friends (and investors) at RIM demonstrating our partnership and product – and look forward to bringing Xobni to mobile devices early next year. To be notified when the product is available, please sign up here , and stay tuned.

A few weeks ago at RIM’s Wireless Enterprise Symposium, we confirmed our plans to make a mobile version of Xobni available later this summer. We appreciate the feedback & excitement from everyone and we’re looking forward to getting it into your hands (literally).

This morning, during Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s keynote address at JavaOne, Alan Brenner (RIM’s SVP of BlackBerry Platforms) showed off Xobni for the BlackBerry. Alan highlighted how this will not be just another stand-alone application on your BlackBerry; Xobni Mobile will be deeply integrated into your mobile experience.  For example, you will be able utilize the power of Xobni’s comprehensive people search directly from the completely familiar BlackBerry “Compose Email” screen.

Jonathan Schwartz and Alan Brenner on stage at JavaONE with Xobni Mobile

Why do you need another addressbook?  We have all been on the go, away from the office, desperate to email someone that we know we have been in touch with in the past.  Today you might be stuck fruitlessly hunting for their details (or calling a coworker to look up the information).  With Xobni Mobile, just start a new email message as you normally would, then select the Xobni bar and type in the first letter(s) of their first name, last name, or company name.  Instantly you’ll see results from everyone who has ever emailed you, ranked by importance to you (with profile photos & job titles too!).  Just select the desired person and their email address will be placed into the To/Cc/Bcc field of your choice.

Because Xobni scans all of your emails for contact information, Xobni’s people search often contains 10-30 times the number of contacts that are in a typical Contacts list, and requires no work to maintain.

More details will come further down the road, but we wanted to let you – our beloved Xobni users – know about the latest in our efforts to allow you to take Xobni with you everywhere, saving you precious time when it really counts.  For more updates, please sign up to be notified when Xobni mobile is available here.