I receive hundreds of mails a day;  I mean hundreds.   I have rules that move sort and file each of these mails so that I don’t have to and so that I can ignore at least 70% of them.   The reality is that in my current role I have to deal with a lot of the mail and organizing it and keeping tabs on the important email is always a challenge.  I mentioned yesterday I was hoping to get into the private beta of Xobni. I did.  (Thanks Lifehacker!)

Since I got it and installed I thought I would share how it works, and whether it makes any difference for me.   One caveat is that this is a beta and so there probably may be small issues related to the fact that it is not the prime time product. Xobni is an add-on for Microsoft Outlook that “offers effortless email management and provides instant access to the most important information in your email.”  It does this by analyzing your mail and creating a simple social graph of the mail.  It connects important information in the mail such as who is connected with an individual contact, mails from that contact, and any attachments to create a broad picture of your communication with an individual. Installation of Xobni was simple.  Standard stuff; click the link follow the instructions.  One thing that seems to be missing is a notice in the instructions that once you get started Xobni will have to analyze your inbox.   It took about 25 minutes and I was without mail the entire time.  One other challenge is that the installer tried to run a instructional video; this video caused my machine to hang. Although to be fair I was running a ton of apps, but it was a unexpected task on my computing power.

So once install I have had the chance to see the tool.  It fits nicely in the right pane of outlook and looks sharp.  There is a lot of information at your finger tips.  I can’t help but be delighted at the analytic data that is right at the top.   Xobni displays the email traffic with an individual and provides a rank for the individual.  I am not sure this is really a true measure of importance, because it is based on frequency not on the content or context of mails.  The best thing I notice on first install is the phone number feature.  The tool extracts phone numbers from the mails and displays it in the contact pane.  This is a real time saver and if you use Skype it can connect from within outlook.  I have office communicator and I tried the feature and it WORKED!  Awesome guys.   This may or may not have been a planned compatibility, but it is awesome.

After a few days of using this, I will share a little more of my experience.  A product like this has the opportunity to help me get more done by speeding up common tasks I do all day long and I could always use a little help.