

 Xobni: Our Path from ‘Wrong Product’ to Killer App - pbnaidu
http://gigaom.com/2008/05/11/xobni-our-path-from-wrong-product-to-killer-app/

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dshah
I'm a big fan of Xobni (the company), but a couple of the points in this
article bugged me:

1\. There's not clear evidence yet that they've landed on the "killer app".
Yes, it's likely more killer (killerer?) than what they started with, but it's
too early too tell. Lots of things _seem_ like the killer app, but few are.
They may have a couple of iterations left before they hit the true killer app.

2\. One of the the stated reasons for not supporting GMail yet is that
"Outlook users are more likely to have business credit cards". Although that's
true, my guess is that there are enough users on GMail that also have credit
cards for it to be interesting.

On the other hand, the "are you happy" box is cool.

~~~
utnick
Its also alot easier to write a plugin for outlook ( a desktop program )...
than it is to modify the functionality of an existing website that is not
yours in a nonbuggy crossplatform way.

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paul
I bet that you've never written an Outlook plugin :)

I'd much rather try to hack Gmail JS, which many people have done, btw (see
Remember The Milk for a popular example).

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natrius
GMail is a moving target and anything that integrates with it is liable to
break without notice. Outlook changes once every couple of years and actually
has a documented API for integrating with it that is updated when a new
version is released (I presume).

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menloparkbum
If enough people star the request ticket for a Gmail gData api, perhaps a
xobni style widget for gmail will be easier to build in the future.

<http://code.google.com/p/gdata-issues/issues/detail?id=271>

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kirubakaran
Okay, I did my part.

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maxklein
This is just silly. I install xobni, and just like the comments on that site,
after a couple of days I was thinking - huh? What does this app do? And how
come it swallows so much of my screen real estate.

There is space for an outlook plugin, but xobni have just picked a weak
product and are getting it installed by effective marketing.

Let me make this clear guys: Your product does nothing. It's not useful to me.
It's not killer, it's very weak.

~~~
systems
"how come it swallows so much of my screen real estate"

I second that,the first thing i do in Outlook, Visual Studio, Eclipse ... is
reorganize the panes to maximize the editor area.

For oulook this would be the email body and email list

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Fuca
I think these guys will make money, but not as much as the 20m they just turn
down.

In a year these features will be developed in every email client.

~~~
paul
You are dramatically overestimating the speed with which large products
develop (especially Outlook). Even if they started last year, it still
wouldn't ship for years.

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yariv
In addition, after it ships, it will take years for the new version to be
deployed to a significant portion of existing users.

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SwellJoe
That's also true of Xobni, or any new application. Plugins _may_ face a lower
uptake barrier, but it depends on the organization. MS effectively forces
businesses to upgrade Outlook every few years, and without the stick (and
carrots) that MS wields, it can be a challenge to get anything new into a
business.

But, it's true that a small company can deliver to the people who will upgrade
or install new tools in ways that a large company generally cannot. But the
slow adopters are going to be slow adopters no matter who builds the
application.

~~~
rms
accidentally downmodded, sorry

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vlad
I like and have always congratulated Xobni (
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6477> ) but I don't think the product is
killer yet (though they might be referring to the stuff they have in
development that they can't show to anybody yet.)

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matth
Matt is friends with Natalie Portman? Is this an Easter Egg? ;-)

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aneesh
He also has Will Gates' resume in his recent attachments :)

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matth
I noticed that as well... And yet, I remain more concerned about Natalie.

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dmose
I don't understand how Xobni helps me? I installed it, I let it index my
entire inbox... and .. what now? They should have taken the $20 million.

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tak111
They had to take the 20 millions. why? 20 millions for an eye candy, that's a
lot of money already. IMHO.

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johnyzee
I guess with this strategy it helps to have a name that means absolutely
nothing ;-)

~~~
maxklein
Inbox backwards.

