Microsoft Outlook Gets Facebook Integration

Microsoft has just released integration between Outlook and Facebook, available through the Outlook Social Connector for Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010. The Social Connector, which was released some time ago, previously only integrated with LinkedIn.

This move helps Outlook get one step closer towards being a completely synchronized social media and email tool. The latest social connector upgrade allows you to interact with Facebook by viewing wall and status updates in an extra viewing pane.  Avid users of Facebook and the other social media that are now integrated with the connector like LinkedIn and Live Messenger, will most likely find this upgrade especially useful for creating a centralized communications hub.

The Outlook Social Connector appears as an additional viewing pane called the “People Pane” and it appears just under the email message that you’re currently viewing. The connector gathers real-time information from the social networks and displays it in this pane. This allows you to view your email contacts' social network profile updates as well as all your prior interactions with that contact including previously sent/received emails and meetings etc.

Many of you Outlook users who are interested in this integration will be happy to know that Outlook has decisively addressed the privacy issues surrounding the integration. Most likely due to the heady debates that have been circling the internet in past months, Outlook is taking particular care to ensure that social media users’ privacy remains intact. An official document released by Microsoft describing the Social Connector explains that the information that is pulled from social networks and displayed in the people pane is only the information that is shown based on the user’s privacy settings in that network.

Overall the integration is pretty interesting and no doubt many Outlook users will take advantage of it as a way to once more limit the amount of communication tools they use to stay in contact with their social network. However, we have noticed one major flaw in the upgrade as it stands right now. At this time you can’t actually update your Facebook account using Outlook and you can’t view Facebook profiles or accounts of anyone unless they send you an email first. This means that you can only view real-time updates if you have received an email from a contact, which isn't optimal from an integration standpoint.

For a look at the Facebook Outlook Social Connector Announcement Video, you can view it on Mashable.

Posted by Amberlie Denny at July 14, 2010 8:00 AM

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