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Xobni Blog
xobni.com · Company blog · on HN since 2007
The company blog of Xobni, a Y Combinator startup that made an email-organizing plugin for Outlook and later Gmail.
What HN saysHN commenters mention it mainly as an example of an email-organizing product, often next to Rapportive, and point to its company history and Gmail beta.
43HN people shared it
23linked it in comments
46stories submitted
913story points
13 years agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Homepage5 people · first shared 2008
- 2Xobni: Goodbye, Organize Tab3 people · 8 points · first shared 2008 · 7 comments on HN
- 3MIT undergrad's reactions to working at a startup2 people · 22 points · first shared 2007 · 4 comments on HN
- 4Xobni, Y Combinator startup seeking great hackers. We'll be wearing black shirts at startup school.2 people · 12 points · first shared 2007 · 7 comments on HN
- 5Gmailbeta2 people · first shared 2011
- 6Opensource2 people · first shared 2008
- 7Xobni Closes $7 Million Series B Financing1 people · 63 points · first shared 2009 · 31 comments on HN
- 8What Open Source Can’t Do1 people · 59 points · first shared 2008 · 49 comments on HN
- 9A 4 year progression of startup offices1 people · 54 points · first shared 2010 · 14 comments on HN
- 10Xobni's Facebook app replaces Facebook messaging with email1 people · 53 points · first shared 2007 · 12 comments on HN
- 11Xobni Has a New CTO and Change in My Role1 people · 52 points · first shared 2010 · 14 comments on HN
- 12Xobni launches 4 partnerships that will change Outlook forever1 people · 39 points · first shared 2008 · 40 comments on HN
- 13YC startup Xobni launches beta at TechCrunch 401 people · 39 points · first shared 2007 · 48 comments on HN
- 14Hehe - Xobni recruiting video1 people · 38 points · first shared 2007 · 35 comments on HN
- 15Xobni (YC S06) comes to Gmail1 people · 37 points · first shared 2011 · 20 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
JocoProductions · 2013-07-03
There's also a very cool history behind Xobni featured on their homepage: https://www.xobni.com/.
Britton · 2011-03-28
Hi there.
Xobni for Gmail is in Beta right now and although it does not do exactly what you are asking, Xobni does have a recommendation engine that does help to solve this pain point. Once you start an email to someone, Xobni will identify and recommend the people you often email with that person - so, although there is no specific list you can select, Xobni takes a lot of the guesswork out for you.
If you are interested in getting into the Xobni for Gmail beta, go here - http://www.xobni.com/waitinglist/gmailbeta/ and enter the following media code for priority access: XOBNI-BRITTON
barrydahlberg · 2010-08-18
Not a monthly subscription, but generating plenty of buzz anyway:
http://rapportive.com/
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/02/rapportive-funding/
Maybe something more like xobni but for gmail?
http://www.xobni.com/
brlewis · 2008-05-02
http://www.xobni.com/
"Drowning in Email?
Find Email & Attachments Instantly"
"Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that helps you organize your flooded inbox"
It looks to me like they're focused on reaching people who have a problem to solve, and aren't concerned about being viewed as "just an outlook plugin."
plusbryan · 2008-04-01
Pine in flash:
http://www.xobni.com/?page_variant=pine_default
brezina · 2007-07-11
First, everyone in a startup is an implementor. We can't afford anything else.
The only place the "employee" designation means anything at Xobni is on our worker's comp policy. Our whole team helps evaluate new hires, attends investor parties, and has input on business decisions. We happen to be looking for the best to join us: http://www.xobni.com/jobs.php
drunkenfly · 2012-07-10
Xobni for Outlook does it. https://www.xobni.com/
zavulon · 2011-02-16
skmurphy · 2008-07-24
There are some strange sentiments in the announcement on http://www.xobni.com/blog/2008/07/23/xobni-is-growing-adding-technical…
"And while we are sad to see Gabor go, his departure is a big opportunity for Xobni." It's spin to present the loss of a technical founder as an opportunity. The fact that they couldn't keep him in a CTO role, distinct from a VP of Engineering role, speaks volumes. And it's an insult to characterize it as an "opportunity."
The blog entry goes on to list requirements for the new VP "The right person will:
champion our engineering ethos, [CTO]
deliver a fantastic product, [product manager]
on-time. [product manager]
be an able manager [vp engineering]
who excels at rapid company growth. [vp engineering]
know how to ship desktop software [product manager]
know how to add or remove process [CEO]
This is probably at least three people: a VP of engineering, a CTO, and a product manager. And I think the last is more properly the province of the CEO. Their detailed position description at http://www.scribd.com/doc/4062717/Xobni-VP-Engineering has this sentence:
"they must contribute as an architect, but still get their hands dirty coding." Those skills don't normally come in a package with an excellent manager who understands process and rapid company growth. This is the VP Eng vs. CTO split in a rapidly growing technology driven company.
grinich · 2012-02-07
I doubt they'll shut it down. This is likely a play to compete with Xobni's Smartr for Gmail (though they have a bit different functionality).
http://www.xobni.com/download/gmail
JarekS · 2010-05-21
You will have tough competition from i.e. Xobni. They are free to use, well integrated with Outlook and let you display LinkedIn info about every email address that you are dealing with. http://www.xobni.com/social-outlook
jpcx01 · 2010-05-19
Umm, not according to your docs. http://www.xobni.com/support/?view=192
Recipient extractors are a tad bit important. No doubt its coming soon on your dev roadmap though.
csallen · 2009-12-17
Xobni came to mind ... they weren't so very much at the mercy of Microsoft.
One of Xobni's biggest barriers to entry is the difficulty of developing for Outlook. However, that difficulty doesn't exist for Microsoft itself, so Xobni's always run the risk of MS simply packaging all their features into Outlook itself:
http://www.xobni.com/blog/2009/11/18/xobni-and-the-outlook-social-conn…
r7000 · 2008-05-03
http://www.xobni.com/blog/2008/04/04/goodbye-organize-tab/
the functionality was removed as well
jey · 2007-09-17
http://www.xobni.com/blog/2007/09/17/xobni-will-launch-at-techcrunch-4…
Apparently they're officially launching tomorrow, so you can check it out then.
nostrademons · 2007-08-23
The idea of tacking your name onto software seems to be gaining ground lately. Until recently, every FaceBook page had "A Mark Zuckerberg production" on the bottom, though he didn't really share the credit with the rest of the team. I guess that makes him much more Roger Waters than Mike Portnoy. The nonprofit I spent much of college working on has a list of all the team members that make it happen (http://www.fictionalley.org/houseelves.html). And Xobni has full bios for everyone on the team (http://www.xobni.com/team).
ph0rque · 2007-06-01
I believe xobni uses C# in at least some of their code: http://www.xobni.com/blog/2007/01/31/kevins-thoughts/
gaborcselle · 2007-05-26
antirez - your points are valid. This page is intended to show that Xobni is a fun place to work. Let me address 1-4.
1. I can't say exactly what we're doing at Xobni yet except for "We're making email suck less" :-) The work here is at the intersection of Machine Learning, NLP, systems programming, and UI stuff.
2. The salaries we offer are very competitive - more than at most competitors. We want people to be happy and not have to worry about money in SF (an expensive city).
3. San Francisco is beautiful. From the Xobni office, it's 10 meters to shopping, 2 blocks to Union Square, 4 blocks to world-class museums, 30 minutes to the ocean, and 4 hours to skiing. Hard to beat that.
We actually give people three displays (not two).
Sounds good? http://www.xobni.com/jobs.php
frichard1974 · 2011-03-18
adamsmith · 2009-09-02
Very briefly -- http://www.xobni.com/about/opensource
RichardPrice · 2007-05-18
I thought it would be really cool to have a list of all the blogs of people running startups - people who are talking about, and sharing, their experiences. Here are a few I know:
Harj Taggar (Auctomatic): http://mealticket.wordpress.com/
Kul Taggar (Auctomatic): http://kulveer.co.uk
Pairwise: http://blog.pairwise.com
Xobni: http://xobni.com/blog
Crowdstorm: http://blog.crowdstorm.com
qhoxie · 2008-11-12
See below a list of OSS from YC companies.
This is clearly not the only way of giving back to the community. What about all the contributions they make to the projects they use. I believe scribd has stretched rails to limits beyond any other site and has made contributions from it. Adam from heroku just discussed a patch he submitted to rails too. The list goes on, I'm sure.
Also, you sound like you have used iPaper, a free service provided by Scribd. Perhaps you should consider an amicable request for an open version of iPaper (since that is obviously why you made this post) rather than calling YC companies parasites.
On a related note, I would be interested to hear what parts of your company's product you have opened.
I'll build a list:
http://blog.reddit.com/2008/06/reddit-goes-open-source.html
http://portal.insoshi.com/
http://ycombinator.com/seriesaa.html
http://www.webmin.com/index8.html
http://opensource.heroku.com/
http://trac.youos.com/
http://www.getdropbox.com/install?os=linux
http://www.xobni.com/about/opensource
http://appjet.com/app/150996096/source