(Photo credit: Xobni)

Thanks to Jeff Price at BOC International, who sent me a LinkedIn connection invitation via a new Outlook plugin called Xobni, I have hope of “taking back my inbox.” This is according to both Xobni’s literature and reviews like CNet’s.

I had never heard of Xobni. I can tell from the spelling that our high-technology age is quickly running out of pithy utterances available from the Roman alphabet, and Norton warns me that apparently “fewer than 10 people” have downloaded this plugin. Norton can’t mean that for all of Xobni, though. What about Jeff Price and all his LinkedIn friends? We’ve only spoken a few times, but I’m guessing he has more than nine. (Come to think of it, Norton is the one that sometimes can’t count many friends, although their latest version has indeed really solved most of the problems that plagued previous ones.) I’m guessing then that that’s what its warning is about: this particular build of Xobni or something — otherwise, if I were really among the first ten users, I would have won a prize by now, right?

Nevertheless, Xobni captured my attention immediately with its seductive promise of being able to cross-reference email and social media contacts and, even better, leverage the social networking of email itself. As social-media grows there’s an increasing dichotomy between people that effective leverage twitter and all and those of us who “still use email.” If Xobni can help bridge that gap, as both social networks and email platforms are incredibly useful, then I immediately wanted to watch the video. And I hardly ever make time for that. I still need to explore it, but between an easy presentation and a clear website, to say nothing of the inherent recommendation via LinkedIn, I downloaded and installed immediately.

Then, while I was waiting for Xobni to index my PST files, I went to send an email. Outlook once again could neither auto-fill nor suggest an address that’s somewhere in my database. At that moment Xobni Plus closed the sale. A clever bit of script was able to hint the precise email address I needed: a grayed-out drop-down that I couldn’t quite select without upgrading for $30. Worth it, I thought, and now it’s telling me in a shiny new, colorful panel that has appeared in Outlook that “we’re ready to rock.” We’ll see, but so far, so great.

The proliferation of video online provides a way for some groups to produce how-to and informational videos, such as this one concerning myths about the common cold. Other groups use online videos to promote a particular viewpoint, such as storewars.org’s humorous Grocery Store Wars video, which features animated fruits and vegetables playing the familiar Luke, Darth Vader, Obi Wan, Chewbacca and Han Solo characters. The premise of the video is to inform consumers that pesticides used by non-organic farmers harm the air and water, and create a health hazard for the food supply. The video represents the viewpoint of the Organic Trade Association, which claims that organic food is healthier and more nutritious.

Even though online videos are popular and can often be entertaining, investigating their claims for truthfulness can be important. For example, one can examine facts about the benefits of pesticides such as keeping restaurants, hotels and malls free of insects and rodents, or preventing the spread of bacteria, including Staphylococcus.

The ubiquitousness of broadband makes online videos easy to enjoy. Many videos are mere entertainment while others contain marketing messages. Taking a moment to dig a bit deeper beyond what is presented on the screen can help viewers get a more balanced viewpoint. All of this said, I really appreciate the creativity of video creators who can take a boring subject and make it interesting. Why even cardboard can be entertaining on YouTube: Behold the folding cardboard chair!

Consider offering your site visitors interesting and entertaining videos that they can enjoy and share with friends. Maybe you just want to put up some how-to videos on your site. These can vary from specific how-to videos, to the fairly useless, but incredibly funny “How To Fight a Duel.”

According to Marketingexperiments.com’s “Can Viral Video Clips Drive Targeted Traffic?,” video should be a part of your marketing strategy. Here are some tips from Marketing Experiments Journal to help you create videos that will generate buzz:

1. Keep your video clips short, preferably under 5 minutes.

2. Provide interesting, entertaining or provocative video content.

3. Create short videos that are purely entertaining; not necessarily commercial.

4. Create a video series, and test the videos to see which ones perform the best.

5. Optimize video clips for placement on social networking sites. Ensure tags and bookmarking links are enabled to help people share and save videos.

He accomplished this in short order, by pulling out a mini-video camera and conducting a video interview of the pilot, who soon called airport security to have Mr. Ollila removed from the plane.

Marketing angle: the security folks determined Ollila was no threat, but were fascinated by his tiny camera, made by Ollila’s company, V.I.O., Inc., as “wearable video technology.” He not only got off the plane quickly, but got to demo his product free to very interested representatives of the security industry. Plus, free publicity via the article (with links to his company and product sites!) in the U.S. Newspaper of Record. (Oh, and this blog, too.)

If anyone sees his video show up on YouTube, please let me know — that would add a further social-media/Web 2.0 angle.