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!

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

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

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

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!