Xobni: Turn Outlook Into A Social Network
Xobni is one of the cool startups to come out of the TechCrunch 40 conference, and after installing their software, I've come off pretty impressed. Xobni produces a free Outlook add-in (Xobni is inbox backwards) that appears as a sidebar while reading emails in Outlook.
Context & Ripple Effects
Xobni came out of the TechCrunch40 productivity and web apps session two days ago, and it is the rare launch that targets the most entrenched client in enterprise software rather than the browser: a free add-in that renders as a sidebar inside Outlook while you read mail.
The pitch, per the reviewer who installed it, is that your inbox already contains your social graph — who you write to, how often, how fast they reply — and Xobni surfaces it without asking users to adopt a new destination site. That puts a startup's interface one layer above Microsoft's own enterprise mail client, which is why the launch matters beyond the demo floor.
First-order effects
- Outlook users get contact analytics and relationship context inside the reading pane at no cost, lowering the barrier for a free add-in to spread through the same enterprises where Outlook is already standard.
- Microsoft now has a third party shipping a visible layer on top of its flagship mail client, forcing a choice between tolerating the extension ecosystem and asserting control of the Outlook surface.
Second-order effects
- Other Outlook add-in developers face pressure to match the social-graph framing, since a free utility that reinterprets the inbox sets the reference point for what an email sidebar should do.
- If adoption grows inside companies, IT buyers gain a de facto vote on which third-party software touches corporate mail data — a distribution channel Xobni gets without selling to Microsoft first.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward email clients functioning as platforms whose value is contested between the vendor that owns the client and the add-on makers who own the user experience on top of it — gatekeeping over the inbox becomes contestable rather than settled.
- If relationship data mined from mail proves valuable enough, the social graph stops being something only dedicated networks hold, and whoever indexes workplace communication holds a parallel asset.
The trend: Email is being repositioned from a communication tool into a platform for third-party social layers built on the workplace communication graph, with the client owner's tolerance setting the pace.