Outlook Harnesses Social Networking

Only one week later after the announcement of Google Buzz, Gmail and social network integration, Microsoft announced its application that connects Outlook to social networks. This launch is an attempt to transform Outlook from an e-mail client, or messaging platform, to a social networking hub with the addition of social connectors.

Building in his Outlook Social Connector launched last November, Microsoft announced its partnership with Facebook and MySpace. Microsoft’s goal is not to build its own social network; instead they are trying to connect all the social networks to Outlook.

The tool allows a given contact to stay up stay up to date with current updates and communications. The users will not need to log-in in to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other social networks one by one.

The question is whether online users will appreciate this effort? It seems that people think they have enough social networks to manage and they are expecting a tool to simplify its interaction with social networks. Outlook attempt is to aggregate them all. Instead of creating a new social network as Google Buzz, it seems that Microsoft is shooting in the right direction.

There is a lot of uncertainty about this announcement since a lot of people think that Microsoft hasn’t been active on innovation during the last years. However it seems that Microsoft is clearly targeting many business professional that are already used to Outlook and giving them exactly what they were asking for.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/189726/outlook_harnesses_social_networking.html