Microsoft Adds Facebook Integration Into Outlook

[engine]

Microsoft Adds Facebook Integration Into Outlook [news.bbc.co.uk]

Microsoft has integrated Facebook into its Outlook e-mail system in its latest move towards the social web.

Users of Outlook will be able to see the Facebook profile photos of their e-mail contacts, plus their news feeds, status updates, pictures uploads and wall posts.

Currently people will only be able to view Facebook pages rather than update them via their e-mail account.

[hugh]

I know of at least one add-on from a start up which has been doing the profile picture thing in outlook for ages including support for linked in and other networks. Having said that pictures add a nice dimension to email...

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

My first thoughts were what happens when Facebook takes its tumble like most of its predecessors but when you think about it this was probably very easy for MS to do.

[J_RaD]

yes it won't be hard to remove your outlook plugin when FB take a dive.

[Hugene]

Hold on a second here. This is too much: won't Facebook start getting access to usage patterns related to email use (often professional) through the activity they log from this system (aka, profile loads, picture loads)?

Or will it be somehow anonymized? I doubt it can, because you'll need to be logged in to FB, right?

Next, what about all kinds of malware embedded in images or other code download from FB to your Outlook directly?

Finally, a hacked Outlook will also result in a hacked FB profile?

This is pure garbage. No way this gets passed or approved for corporate use.

[weeks]

Aghggggahhaagaa!
<expletives deleted>

[mack]

its in many ways similar to what HTC do with their contact manager. You can link a contact to their FB account and it updates the profile image from the FB website.

From a privacy aspect I can see the concerns, Outlook may be caching the images and only checking for updates periodical.

Mack.

[physics]

Two great virus vectors that go great together.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Yikes, talk about being way late to the game. Since Microsoft has no real social network near release is this a ploy to prop up Facebook against/for the onslaught... err, release of Google's "we've got you hooked in from email to shopping" behemoth social network?

When Google owns social on top of search we will need a David to fight the Goliath, I guess I approve. Suddenly all of Google's recent purchases make sense, and must scare the bejesus out of any David.

[J_RaD]

yes but goog swings in vain with a blindfold on. If they had any sense other things they would be doing would be creating them revenue.

Maybe they have realized they really are a 1 trick pony

[ByronM]

Yikes, talk about being way late to the game. Since Microsoft has no real social network near release is this a ploy to prop up Facebook against/for the onslaught... err, release of Google's "we've got you hooked in from email to shopping" behemoth social network?

In case you haven't noticed MS hasn't really been interested in cloning everything out there lately. Even their live spaces is moving more from a wannabe social network to an integration point.

MS is REALLY excelling at integrating 3rd parties. Their building their cloud infrastructure to make Facebook, Twitter et all seemless across all microsoft properties from XBL to Zune to Windows to Windows phone.

I actually commend them for what they're doing. Instead of assimilating their integrating and the integration is rather nice.

However, security/privacy implications are still of a concern.