Redmond, Washington — Slacking off at work just got a little easier with Outlook flourishing beyond a simple desktop email client, as Microsoft has recently empowered users to connect directly to four of the world’s top social networks. Pictures, status updates, and friend requests can appear next to email.
Microsoft’s latest move seems both smart and natural, as the world’s most popular site, Facebook is the crown jewel of Microsoft Outlook Social Connector, a plug-in that combines social networking with e-mail.
This achievement became possible due to the Outlook Social Connector,a plug-in that Microsoft unleashed in February, which had already established ties between Outlook, LinkedIn, and added MySpace to the mix in March. Microsoft’s looking very well-connected in the social media space as a result.
For now, Facebook is a one-way street on Outlook. Facebook and Windows Live Messenger have already been included to the Outlook Social Connector in Office 2010. Additionally, the software behemoth unleashed Outlook Social Connector as a downloadable plug-in for the 2003 and 2007 editions of Microsoft Office.On July 13th, Microsoft announced the release of the Outlook Social Connector, effectively transforming Outlook into a super- communications tool that allows users of Microsoft’s e-mail program to stay connected with their friends, family and colleagues by viewing their contacts’ Facebook status updates, photos and will posts in real time, and Outlook also pulls profile pictures to associate with each Facebook-connected contact.
“Connections and communication also happen on websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Windows Live. Through these sites, you find new contacts and reconnect with old ones. You can share who you are, what you think, what you are doing, and what you like or do not like. So, it makes sense that you can now add your friends and colleagues to these sites and get their activities from within Outlook,” revealed Paco Contreras Herrera, Group Product Manager, Microsoft Office.
“We have partnerships with Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Windows Live Messenger, and we anticipate that there will be more partnerships with other social providers coming down the pike,” Herrera said during an in-house video interview. “Working closely with key partners, including Facebook, our goal is to help you stay in touch with the people you care about and simplify your daily routine,” he added in a blog.
Outlook is not the first mainstream e-mail service to get social networking integration. “According to the Nielsen ratings, 67 percent of the global online audience now goes online to visit social networks and blogs to communicate, make decisions, and get things done,” Herrera wrote. “The Outlook Social Connector does not add another social network into the mix; rather, it offers busy people the convenience of accessing them in Outlook.”
Moreover, according to Microsoft, just the following languages are supported for the time being: Arabic, Brazilian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Thai. But the software giant did promise to add support for more localized versions of Office in the next few months.
So far, Microsoft has not added Twitter to the bundle of social networks currently available via Outlook Social Connector. However, the Codeplex developer community is apparently working on a Twitter third-party app that will bring the popular micro-blogging service directly into the Outlook Social Connector for Office 2010.
Outlook Social Connector is available for download here.
Office Home and Business 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.
Office Home and Student 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.
Office Professional 2010 RTM Build 14.0.4760.1000 is available for download here.