Here’s a tough one:

What if you know about an amazing piece of software, but you don’t use it because it adds to conflicts that other software has with . . . everything? Do you choke it down and use it anyway? Do you recommend it to others?

In my case the answer to the first question is no, but I’m so impressed with the software in question that I’m reconsidering. And my answer to the second question is a resounding “yes”. Go out and get Xobni, right now.

Xobni works inside Microsoft Outlook (the troublemaker I was talking about above) to make your e-mail better. Seriously.  I don’t make statements like that very often and generally The Computer Answer Guy steers its clients away from extra things that muck up computers’ inner workings. But Xobni is that good.

Let’s go a step further, since they just have: Xobni plays the business change / social marketing / social networking game incredibly well, which will help you do the same. And now, Xobni puts Twitter streams inside your e-mail. Big deal? Heard that before? Well how’s this: Xobni doesn’t just show you a string of Twitter noise, it displays tweets of the person whose email you are reading, whether or not you follow them on Twitter.

That’s right: current, <ahem> pertinent information about people you know, in your e-mail software, without you having exchanged recent e-mail with them.

Sure, it’s a little stalker-esque, but it’s also intelligence in an era where we’re all trying to figure out anything we can to grab an edge. In short, it’s the definition of social media / social networking. This version of Xobni is business change.

Now if only there was a viable alternative to Outlook, and if only Xobni didn’t require it . . .