“Bew eht iks retaw,” my friends.

That’s a Viking greeting of solidarity, often spoken at a Feast of the Moon, which was always held during a Blue Moon, which is the second full moon of the month.  It’s also “Waterski the Web” backwards.

It’s a crazy way to start a post, but it’s fitting as our topic is Xobni (zob-nee), which is Inbox backwards.

Xobni was first introduced to me by my contact at Fetchback.  What I thought was a word of mouth email turns out to be a cleverly designed invitation system designed by Xobni to help spread the word about the Outlook add-on.  Either way I’m grateful!

It’s a cool idea to flip the name backwards- makes it sound alien and futuristic.  It’s also really hard to spell once you know it’s “inbox.”  You have to put real thought into it! (wah wah complain complain)

Okay so just what does xobni do?

Xobni is an Outlook plugin that helps you search and organize your inbox. It makes a lot of sense when you see it in action, and there are a lot of issues it helps resolve.  Practical solutions are something I never get tired of using!

Have you ever:

• Searched for an attachment from someone?  Even with their own folder, someone who sends you a lot of mail will have accumulated lots of fodder in that folder.
• Exchanged several emails with someone on two different topics and had to dig through the history to find what you’re looking for?
• Wondered if the person you were emailing was a human being? Or maybe forgot they were?

These are a few of the issues that Xobni takes care of.  They isolate all of the attachments from a person as soon as you click on one of their emails, identify multiple email conversation strings and organize it in the sidebar for you, and finally display a photo, visible phone number, and links to popular social networking sites (LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter).

2 million Xombies and Counting!

There are also Premium features (a load of bells and wistles) that you can upgrade into, but the bulk of the fun and power comes for free.

Additionally, there’s an awesome video from founder Adam Smith.  He talks about the lengthy, life encompassing development of Xobni as an Internet Start-up.

Spelling with an ‘x’ but sounds like a ‘z’

I had heard complaints from the founders of Justin.Tv (literally http://www.Justin.Tv) about their regret for picking the .tv extension and that they wish they had the .com.  I wondered if xobni might have the same issue.  On a hunch I went to zobni.com and guess what?  It redirects to xobni. Clever and smart!  That way if people only hear of the add-on from friends, their misspelling won’t spell their doom.

Enough said. If you are using Outlook for email, go get xobni and try it out.  Let me know how it works for you by leaving a comment on this article.