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Thinking back, I believe that Xobni may well have been the first social media add-on that I was ever exposed to when it was first introduced for Outlook. Since that time, I have added it to my BlackBerry and now have an opportunity to test it out for Gmail. Xobni has also announced applications for both iPhone and Android.
In the Gmail arena, Xobni competes with Gist (now owned by Rim/BlackBerry) and Rapportive. Etacts was acquired a few months ago by Salesforce.com and is no longer offered as a standalone product. While Gist is also available for Outlook, they have oddly never offered a BlackBerry version. I would expect that to change. Each of these three platforms provide for a good simple solution for integrating some degree of social into your Gmail and each has their strengths and weaknesses. That being said, this article is about Xobni so we will concentrate on that and how this new application compares with their products for Outlook and BlackBerry.
Xobni for Gmail is available as an extension for Chrome or as an add-on for FireFox. Please keep in mind that I am testing a private beta product and, as such, some of the challenges that I have encountered thus far are probably reflective of an application still in development.
Installation was pretty straight forward. You are asked to connect your Gmail or Google Apps account as well as your Twitter, FaceBook, and LinkedIn networks. I did find the connection routines to be a little bit confusing and cumbersome which surprised me as Xobni has always been extremely straight forward with their other platforms. Once your accounts are connected, Xobni will scan and index your emails to establish your Xobni contact records. Please note that I said emails and not contacts. I did have an email exchange with them that indicated to me that contact scanning may be forthcoming however, right now this explains why only 1,000 or my 2,500 contacts showed up in the index. No biggie. Other contacts are added as emails are exchanged. This also explains why none of the contact records in Xobni include my contact phone numbers. Huge bummer and something that I hope they will fix and soon. In all fairness, you can edit a contact record to add the phone number but, like I’m going to do that? Not. Phone numbers do appear on both the Outlook and BlackBerry versions. Let’s take a look at the UI which is both clean and easy to navigate …
Each contact record has four tabs. Moving from left to right you will find: a relationship history graph including people frequently emailed in conjunction with this individual; recent emails (these are shown as a note only and do not link to the actual emails), social streams including FaceBook and Twitter (you can link to the actual Tweet or FaceBook update) but LinkedIn profile info only; and another more complete “frequently emailed with” record. While you can view social network activity, there is no provision to actually interact with those in the manner of say a Twitter reply or a FaceBook comment. This holds pretty much true for the competing platforms, Gist and Rapportive. Xobni does work with your sent mail box but, what it shows is my own profile vs. the profile of those I am sending to. Not much help there. It does not work in Gmail contact record mode. There is also a provision to connect your Outlook and Gmail records though “Xobni Cloud” but I could not quite figure out what benefit that provided and I no longer use Outlook.
Once again, the product I am evaluating is in beta release. It is also marked as being “Xobni Lite” which would lead me to believe that there will be paid versions with more features. I also want to add that Xobni does provide outstanding support! I like what they have done with Outlook and BlackBerry so it pains me to say that they have missed the mark on Gmail. Xobni is “inbox” spelled backwards and they started out by touting “lightning fast email and contact record searches”. Their Gmail platform produces contact records without phone numbers and email records that don’t link to the emails themselves let alone show threaded conversations as they do in Outlook. Honestly, what I see today is a disappointment from a quality company. It’s not that it’s a bad application. It’s just that I can’t find any compelling reason to use it. Gist is far more robust and it is also free as is Rapportive. Nimble Social CRM, with their single-user “Contact” version being free and providing total integration with Gmail or Google Apps, is really the outstanding solution for bringing social to Gmail. Then again, I am a Nimble Solution Partner so I would tend to be somewhat prejudiced 
Thanks for visiting!
Craig
Related articles
- Xobni Inbox Management App Launches Private Alphas for Android and iPhone (intomobile.com)
- Xobni for Gmail enters private beta; Android, iPhone next (download.cnet.com)
- Xobni for Gmail: Just in time or a little too late? (zdnet.com)
- Xobni for Gmail enters private beta; Android, iPhone next (download.cnet.com)
- Xobni Is Coming To Gmail, Android, And iPhone (100 Beta Invites) (techcrunch.com)
- Xobni for Gmail Is Here [INVITES] (mashable.com)
Craig M. Jamieson is a lifelong B2B salesperson, manager, owner, and a networking enthusiast. NetWorks! Boise Valley is a business to business networking organization for the most serious sales and marketing professionals only.
