Xobni is a new plugin for Outlook 2007 users and it kicks your email capabilities ass. That’s right Brandon, even GMail.
Xobni’s functionality includes:
• Email search. Way faster than the current Outlook07 search. When I started typing in the first two or three letters in Xobni it immediately began pulling up emails with those letters used. It has been a time saver because Outlook takes forever to search through 2 years of emails. With Xobni, it’s pulling them up in seconds.
• Email Analyticss. Fancy little graph showing you the frequency of email usage between you and your contact. Below the graph, it shows you the number of messages sent in and out and the contacts rank based on that number.
• Click-to Functions. Click on their phone number, click to schedule time with person (creates a default email and pulls your availability from your calendar!), or click to email this person.
• Linkedin. If your contact has a Linkedin profile, their information (Company & Title) is shown above the network. Click on the Linkedin logo and your browser will open and take you to that person’s profile.
• Network. Shows you all the people you and that person are associated with.
• Conversations. Shows you the history of correspondence between you and that person. How easy!
• Files Exchanged. Shows you all the files you and that person have exchanged. How convenient!
• Fun Facts. Share fun facts with your contacts, such as who responds the fastest to your emails.
I have a feeling I am going to be a promoter of this tool for a while, or at least until everyone in our Company is using it. Xobni is a snapshot of history with your contacts, without any extra links to click. The tool creates instant satisfaction because it’s information accessible NOW. Outlook is now easier & more fun with a tool like this one.
Xobni is based in San Francisco and was founded by Adam Smith and Matt Brezina in 2006. Xobni is the word Inbox spelled backward. Their mission is “to “take back” the email inbox for our users.” I believe they are on the right track.
Not that I need to rant about it, but I’ve become slightly addicted to twitter and much to my dismay something is technically wrong as always. At least this time it’s not that damn flying whale.
The website will take you to a white page with one of two words: YES or NO. Click on the word and find yourself in the MP3 section of Amazon. The song: Celebration by Kool & the Gang, which was the groups only #1 hit. What are they trying to say here? [Raise eyebrow].
Everyone seems to have their own feeling about twitter being down. Gaping Void: “cartoons drawn on the back of business cards” had this to draw:
Michael Arrington, TechCrunch, had this to say about Twitter being down:
…(honestly, it’s news when they keep the site live for 24 hours at this point). But, seriously, they need to get their act together. It’s past embarrassing.
I follow Arrington on Twitter (@TechCrunch). Arrington relies heavily on Twitter to get his blog posts out there. He’s like the Perez Hilton for web gossip & news.
With all the opinion attacks and jokes about Twitter, I have this to say:
Information is priceless. Especially in our generation and in our time. There is a lot happening in this world; some that are beyond our control, others that we cannot seem to control, and everything else. Twitter is the nature of how we respond to mass communication these days. We want it fast, now, and then to move on. Life doesn’t always take that into consideration and things are a lot more complex than the simple Twitter post. The post is quick, but your thoughts about it can live on.
Since drafting this blog a couple of days ago, Twitter has done its efforts to tweak the kinks and they seem to be running smoother than ever. You might see me on Twitter throughout the day and some have inquired who I follow. Here are some interesting people and why I follow them:
@jowyang - always finds some good blog posting or research study about the web. Jeremiah is a web strategist who lives in San Francisco.
@BreakingNewsOn - Up to the minute news coverage 24/7. For when I don’t feel like reading NYT on my phone, I’ll Twitter for a brief and quick update.
@ramit - has a blog on personal finance and entrepreneurship. I follow him for updates and he will sometimes post finance tools or articles on saving or investing. Ramit Sethi graduated from Stanford and is the co-founder and VP of marketing for PBwiki.
Obvious launched Twitter in October 2006 and broke off to form Twitter, Inc in April 2007. Jack Dorsey is the CEO and you can follow him @jack.
Chumby is here! Your morning is now personalized on your alarm clock.
Chumby is the latest in alarm clock technology. It’s changing the way we wake up in the morning. The lovable bean bag filled alarm clock is the size of a coffee mug and feeds you up-to the minute headline news. Or rather you prefer checking the weather, traffic, Facebook updates, latest images from I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER, or perhaps you need your Chuck Norris facts fix before you start your day. Whatever you need to get you up in the morning, chances are Chumby has the answer.
Chumby costs $180 and is available in black, latte and pearl. The device connects to your wireless home network, and has touch screen and motion sensor capabilities. The user is able to download widgets (over 700 available) & customize their Chumby directly from the website. Chumby is a Linux-based, open source platform. If you are a flash animator, feel free to show off your talents by building your own widget and submitting it on Chumby’s site for others to use. The site also has a Wiki, community forum, blog, and showcase page where you can submit and view pictures and videos of Chumby’s everywhere.
If you’re a visual person, watch this video. If you are short on time, fast forward to the 2:00 minute mark for the demonstration.
Chumby Industries, Inc. is a privately held company located in San Diego, CA.
My first cordless telephone was a NOKIA 5190, black and green screen, with no user functionality. The key most often used on my phone was “2” for Mom. It was actually a pretty good function—it usually got me a ride somewhere. Now that I’m older, I no longer have to depend on mom to get me to or fro. I have GPS for that.
Today, the basic user functionality extends beyond what the average user even needs. Nokia is leading in the cell phone market, selling around 435 million phones worldwide last year. Sales for Nokia are trailing in the US due to the competition (Apple). There is, however, speculation of a turnaround for Nokia. Earlier this year, Verizon (US Nokia provider) released its spec requirements in order to allow open-access for developers. The goal is for developers to create applications (must meet Verizon tech standards) to be used as third-party apps for Verizon users.
Google is calling Verizon out, warning the FCC that Verizon is not staying on clear path with open-access rules. According to PC World, “the FCC’s open-access rules required the winner of the C block to allow customers to connect wireless devices of their choosing and run any applications on the network using the C block”. Verizon beat out Google in this year’s auction of the “C block” licenses, with its $4.7billion dollar bid. Since then, Verizon has been on the chopping block. Verizon has taken the position (before and after winning its bid) that the network “…wants to be able to sell “locked” devices that are subsidized by the carrier and limited to applications and services approved by the carrier” (Information Week).
I love it!
An introspective article over at A List Apart by Luke Wroblewski delves into the reasons why…
we can do better. In fact, I believe we can get people engaged with digital services in a way that tells them how such services work and why they should care enough to use them. I also believe we can do this without explicitly making them fill out a sign-up form as a first step.
The blog is an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks (Rosenfeld Media, 2008), and you can read it here!
The article is super informative, and expounds upon the practice of gradual engagement, whereby a user is drawn into the website due to useful or practical information that pertains to their specific needs. Avoid gradual engagement solutions that simply distribute the various input fields in a sign-up form across multiple pages. It’s a good possibility that this will reduce efficiency and not delight anyone.
At SXSW last week, I was surprised to learn just how many people spend time out of their day Twittering. Yes, I had heard of Twitter, but I never understood the appeal of writing about every little thing I do during the day. And honestly, I don’t think people would want to know every detail of my life. In a sense, I agree with Eric Webber from AdAge, that Twitter is an “exercise in vanity and a reminder that our lives are filled with a lot of mundane activity.”
If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s basically a personal page to write mini-blog posts, 140 characters or less, to keep your friends updated on your life. It’s your response to the question, “What are you doing?” Like other social networks, you can friend people and follow their updates. Common Craft explains the whole Twitter process very well in this YouTube video.
It seems that this way of communication has become extremely popular with professionals because everyone can update their Twitter page from their Blackberry, iPhone or other PDA device. In a way, it gives people something to do while they are waiting in line, sitting in a meeting or listening to a SXSW Interactive panel.
On a side note, Twitter played a large role in the Mark Zuckerberg Keynote interview, when the audience turned on interviewer Sara Lacey. It provided a way for the audience to band together and share similar thoughts about the interview as it was happening.
Without being a member of the site myself, the main appeal I see is getting snippets of information quickly. This is really part of a larger trend in communication. We all have shorter attention spans these days and this trend is beggining to be reflected in the ways we communicate. We prefer to send text messages to tell a friend that we are “running late to lunch,” instead of wasting a minute on a phone call. We want to get straight to the point when we get our news, so instead of taking the time to visit the websites for Fox News, CNN, etc, we use RSS feeds. People do not want to waste their time reading a lengthy news article, they want the facts quickly. This is especially evident in the fact that we have much more information thrown at us on a daily basis. More information than a person can absorb. So in order to grab as much information as possible, we want quick snippets of the headlines and that is exactly what Twitter offers, quick snippets.
While Twitter is mostly used for updates about individuals’ lives, I would not be surprised if news outlets start using a similar format to broadcast the daily headlines. The Twitter format has the potential to become the new way of communicating as people continue to demand a larger volume of information more quickly than before.
So instead of blogging about your day or writing an email to a friend, you will just have to answer the Twitter question, “What are you doing?”
It was 5 days, 4 nights, 3 cars, 2 petty cabs, and 1 song later. I had made it back from SXSW Interactive 2008. Aside from the fact that this festival is in the greatest city in the US, SXSW was chock-full of the industry leaders and inspirers in web design, social media, gaming, and film. I felt like a six-year-old kid with candy in my mouth walking around my dad’s office suite on the 60th floor. Except, to the left of me was a corner area filled with legos … in front of me a beer garden … and to the right was guitar hero! I wasn’t in my Dad’s corner office, I was in My office, hanging out with my friends and being a part of something that didn’t have rules or standards. It’s called the web … and I’m a part of it? Hell yeah I’m a part of this. We all are, and we were all gathered here, in Austin, TX, to listen, learn and discuss it.
While there were many panels I could talk about in length, there is one I can’t stop thinking about. The panel, Interactive Media Trends – Are You On Top of It?, discussed the next generation of media users. Thinking of media, my mind instantly runs down the list :: Video games, DVD’s, blogs, wiki’s, mobile phones, podcasting, etc. I mentioned up there DVD’s, but it slipped my mind to put in the words Blu-Ray, that is until after the panel. I guess it should have dawned on me when in January of this year Warner Brothers Entertainment announced its release of DVD’s in Blu-Ray Disc format exclusively. Or when just one month after Warner Brothers decision, Disney, MGM, Sony and Fox all decided to follow suit. Damn. Am I that behind in technology? Or is this what consumers are asking for? Ah ha! I had come to the right panel. You cannot hide from the inevitable. Blu-Ray will hit stores this year, biting your old-school DVD player in the dust.
About every 6 months someone comes to LevelTen with the novel idea that online medical records are going to change the world, and their right…sort of. If the medical industry as a whole were to adapt a universal system that would allow universal communication (think XML); then that would change the world. The problem is no system has been established and as such the industry does not want to move towards a platform that may be outdated or obsolete very quickly (think HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray).
This past Monday afternoon I attended Transforming Hospital Systems: The Digital Future of Healthcare, unfortunatley their focus was really on EMR or Electronic Medical Records and not necessarily online records. Some of the problems with handwritten records that could be solved by an electronic model include:
Illegible handwriting
Medication Interactions
Immediate access to vital data
Patient prescription abuse
Reduced medical overhead
Thousands of saved lives
I could go on; but clearly it’s time for a change. If the medical industry won’t do it on their own, it’s time the government took a good look at our system and did something to start saving lives.
As a designer, I rely on my vision to impart a hierarchy of data within web pages. It takes a jarring reminder from the smart folks at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival to remind me that not everyone can see the colors I painstakingly deliberate over, the varied and specific shades that I cross-browser test for universal appeal. Even color contrast can be lost to a slight case of color-blindness.
Assistive technologies are on the rise, and we learned about a full spectrum that are available now.
