Mining mail for behavior  |  September 15, 2008  

A few weeks ago Kas wrote about a mail productivity tool he was looking into, so I had to mention one I've been using. I heard about Xobni earlier this year, and have been using it for most of the summer. I just rebuilt my work machines and loaded it back on so it must be useful.

Have you ever wondered about things like:

• Who responds to your emails fastest?
• Who do you send email to most?
• Who do "they" send email to?
• What time of day does an individual normally send me email?

I've written before about deriving information (in this case, networks of interaction) based on behavior. Xobni definitely falls into this class. This tool mines your email archives (assuming you keep everything the way I do) and can report on it from a variety of perspectives. It also lets you quickly see all the attachments you've received from someone and a wide variety of other "nice to have" capabilities.

If you use outlook it's worth a look.

Charlie Bess
EDS' Next Big Thing Blog