Outlook users who dabble in Social network sites like Facebook and LinkedIn (and, let’s face it, who doesn’t dabble these days?) will be delighted with the hot Outlook Social Connectors released yesterday. With these add-ins you can connect your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Windows Live accounts to Outlook, allowing you to see updates and recently posted items from your contacts on each social network. The connectors work in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003, Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and the new kid on the block Microsoft Outlook 2010.
After installing and connecting to your social networks, you’ll see a window like the example above within Microsoft Outlook which will auto-populate with the latest social updates from the sender of each e-mail you receive. It’s really cool to instantly see what each of your contacts have been up to through so many different social networking sites.
You can download the various connectors from Microsoft at the links below:
Microsoft Outlook Social Connector Provider for Windows Live Messenger
Microsoft Outlook Social Connector Provider for Facebook
Social Connector for Outlook 2003 and 2007
LinkedIn connector (direct from the LinkedIn web site)
And extra connector for MySpace will be released shortly assuming, of course, there are still some people dabbling on MySpace by then…
[Update: here’s a wooden video about this: High Quality WMV (2.5 Mbps)]