Founders at Work - Xobni Beta! | Hacker News Reader

Founders at Work - Xobni Beta!

foundersatwork.com

25 pointsluccastera7 comments

Don't want to be mean with Xobni, but considering all the buzz and all the effort that went into it, there are some questions I have to ask. Most importantly, what's the point in all this? What's wrong with e-mail? I get a fair amount of e-mail, read it, delete/archive it, and that's it. Then GMail does a fine job searching your archives. To be honest, I just watched the video, although I got a beta invitation, haven't tried it as I don't use Outlook.

So what's the point in all these analytics? It seems like searching the bible for patterns. So I can find out that my friend sends more e-mails during the day than when he is sleeping. Big deal, I don't care, it's his life. I write him whenever I want, and he responds whenever he wants. That's the whole point in e-mail, it's not disruptive. Then you can see who sent you the most e-mails. Again, I couldn't care less. Glad I'm done with it and I can do something else. I forgot someone's name. Great, if I'm asking a favor, I can pretend I knew it all along. I assume most people who spend too much time in Outlook do it to escape work and to procrastinate, much like reading reddit. If that's the point, a new toy is really useful. To be fair, the previous attachments function does look useful.

Finally I have an honest question. Ok, Xobni is a nice tool, but what's there in it that couldn't have been done without the million-$-investments?

lkozma - People who do have to deal with loads of email each deal have great trouble organizing and searching their repository. This problem is so prevalent that it's hard to deny it exists.

Our first product, Xobni Insight and Xobni Analytics, only the surface of what can be done, and show only a fraction of what we want to do. Building these initial products didn't take millions. But extending Xobni and building a large and happy userbase will.

Hey, maybe I'm not in the target audience, that's all. Anyway, as I said, didn't want to sound mean even if I did. Good luck with your product.

I've been playing with xobni for over a week now... the feature that I use the most (and pretty much the only reason that's kept me from uninstalling) is the search box. I know at this point xobni "show only a fraction of what we want to do"... but since most of us only have a 15 minute attention span, I hope you guys do it quick... :)

At my company adoption rate is 100% :) I showed it to 3 people, all 3 decided to install it themselves and so far (after a week) nobody uninstalled it as far as I know.

Features they like (sorted by importance) are Search, "Connected people" (they are somehow sorted according to importance) and "previous attachments".

Are we allowed to pass on the installer like this? I would have been doing the same thing but I thought the NDA prevented it.

I've found this really useful at work too. This product is really great for big companies.

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