Microsoft adds Facebook to Outlook

Microsoft added Facebook to Outlook, giving users of its popular e-mail programme the ability to view status updates, pictures and wall posts from their friends on the social network.

Outlook now allows e-mail users to view the profile picture and activity of their Facebook friends in a box called the “People Pane”.

“You can view your social network as you look through your e-mail to stay connected with your friends, family, and colleagues,” Paco Contreras Herrera, a group product manager for Microsoft Office, said in a blog post.

Microsoft integrated two other social networks, MySpace and LinkedIn, into Outlook in February using what it calls the “Outlook Social Connector”.

“The Outlook Social Connector doesn’t add another social network into the mix; rather it offers busy people the convenience of accessing them in Outlook,” Contreras Herrera said.

“We expect more partners down the line,” he added.

Outlook 2003 and 2007 users can download the latest version of the Outlook Social Connector from the Microsoft Download Center while Outlook 2010 users can get it through Microsoft Update.