I received the following email yesterday:

Hey:
I know you guys use Digsby and I thought you might like this one. It’s called Xobni (‘inbox’ spelled backwards) and it’s a little widget (5 mins to set up) for Outlook. It runs down the right side of Outlook and you can minimize if you want. It pulls in all the public data from one of your email contacts online personas (facebook, linkedin, etc.), searches all the emails you’ve sent and received to/from that person, catalogs all the attaches you’ve exchanged, etc. It pretty much rocks.

I took the time to attach the add on to my Outlook and I am not a fan for two reasons.

• Digsby lets me organize my 3 IM accounts.
• Digsbylets me to plug into Twitter.

The one item I did like was the very clear and organized contact manager functionality. You are able to see your recent email history and files exchanged between you and the contact. But the lack of IM and Twitter functionality is not enough for me to abandon Digsby.

I also had a consulting client ask me about the use of Skribit.com.

Skribit cures writer’s block by enabling bloggers and writers to receive post suggestions from their readers and the Skribit community. Any time you can engage your peers I highly encourage it. But one word of caution. If you open the suggestion can of worms, you better follow through on those suggestions. When you engage your peers, customers or business partners-you better be diligent about adopting at least 30% of the suggestions, or your constituents will not offer them if they don’t see the fruits of their labor.

Great tool! Especially for folks who are new to blogging. It is also a wonderful function for companies that are engaging Social Media and looking to innovate to the voice of the customer. It will help drive the innovation conversations in the direction that matters most.

Please comment on your expierience using these tools. Happy spring!

Home- The General page harbors access to my blog page, weather, stocks, Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Twitter. Although I use Digsby for my IM, Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter needs, it is nice to be able to click on a tab and see all services from a birds-eye view.

Social Media – I have a social Media tab that holds all of the fine folks I follow on a daily basis. I additionally added the RSS feeds of keywords that are of interest to me on Twitter. I highly recommend this course of action through: http://search.twitter.com I also, have key Twitter folk RSS’d.

News – I love the CNN news widget. I also have a FOX widget up to get the conservative perspective. Slate has a stellar widget that is quirky and different. I am also very fond of WorldNews.com, and immediately added Whitehouse.gov to watch what Obama is up too. I have a Reddit widget that keeps me informed of hot topics being bookmarked. Wallstreet Journal widget is there too!

Sports- I have the ESPN Widget and the RSS feeds for the Mets, Giants, Islanders, Celtics and Duke Basketball from Sportspyder.com

TV, Movies & Music – I won’t bore you with what I have here. But I have organized all the nerdy sites I frequent into one spot. One nerd site I should mention is Aintitcool.com. If you are a movie buff it is a fun site that is not politically correct.

Tools & Technology – I loved the Wired and Techcrunch widgets. I have a few other RSS feeds that are interesting to me, such as platform providers, etc.

The net sum is:

1. The assortment of widgets that Netvibes provides is robust and they all work splendidly.
2. It takes a 30 to 45 minutes to set up.
3. I save at least an hour a day being able to read only what I want- instead of having to surf to see what is new at the destinations that are important to me.
4. As I mentioned earlier, Netvibes is the perfect birds-eye view of what is important to me online.

I hope this recommendation helps folks become more productive with their day! It certainly has deeper functionality than Google Reader does. Thanks AJ!