Focus, experience, skill, passion, and fun – these are the things we look for in hires. We’ve found these traits in the two latest additions to our product team.

We are pleased to announce that Josh Jacobson will be joining Xobni as our Director of Product Management and Brian Kobashikawa will join Xobni as our Principal Designer.

Both of these guys were part of the Yahoo Messenger team that supplanted AOL Messenger as the #1 instant messaging platform in the United States. They were also both part of the product team that released the Yahoo Messenger Vista client to rave reviews. Their skill and experience will translate perfectly to Xobni; they are great at building products that fit into narrow rectangular boxes!

Josh headed product management for all of Yahoo Messenger including the Vista, XP, Web Messenger, and Mac Messenger clients.

Brian brings a rare combination of visual design and user experience design. He was a principal designer at Yahoo, the highest title held by individual contributor designers at Yahoo.

Both have worked for big companies as well as multiple startups and are excited to return to the startup life. We are excited to have them!

The Xobni race car is about to hit 3rd gear.