Jul/100
Developing a provider for the Outlook Social Connector version 1.1
This post is syndicated from Microsoft Outlook 2010.
Following the release of the Outlook Social Connector (OSC) version 1.1 and the availability of new and updated providers, we have released a set of updated and expanded content for developers. The Outlook Social Connector 1.1 Provider Reference incorporates content from OSC 1.0 with new additions for OSC 1.1.
If you’re developing a provider for the OSC, here is a quick guide to the new provider reference on MSDN:
- Getting Started with Developing an Outlook Social Connector Provider helps you understand why and how to develop a provider. For developers who are just getting acquainted with OSC provider development, I especially recommend the topic entitled Quick Steps for Learning to Develop a Provider.
- Updated content on provider deployment and packaging. See the topic entitled Installation Checklist for guidelines about building a provider installation package. Although OSC 1.1 is not redistributable, you can link to the appropriate OSC 1.1 installer using a GLINK.
- Completely new content on testing a provider. See the section entitled Getting Ready to Release an OSC Provider. This section contains the complete guide for your Quality Assurance team to fully test provider installation, authentication, and core OSC features such as contact and activity sync.
- Updated code samples for OSC 1.1. The code samples include a working sample provider and provider templates for Visual Basic, Visual C#, and C++. The code samples require Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 or Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.
If you are a developer interested in building a provider for the Outlook Social Connector, review this new reference content on MSDN. If you have questions or issues with the documentation, contact us at oscprex@microsoft.com. Happy coding!
Randy Byrne
Microsoft Outlook Program Manager
Jul/100
Use the Outlook Social Connector with Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Windows Live!
This post is syndicated from Microsoft Outlook 2010.
Outlook is the premier communications tool to stay connected with colleagues, friends, and family. Your email messages, even from multiple accounts, are in one place. Connections and communication also happen on websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Windows Live. Through these sites, you find new contacts and reconnect with old ones. You can share who you are, what you think, what you are doing, and what you like or don’t like. So, it makes sense that you can now add your friends and colleagues to these sites and get their activities from within Outlook.
Today, we are announcing that you can use the Outlook Social Connector with Facebook and Windows Live. Our partners LinkedIn and MySpace are also releasing updates for their providers. All of the latest providers appear on the provider page.
We are also releasing the Outlook Social Connector for Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Office Outlook 2003 in the following languages:
Arabic, Brazilian, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Thai, with more languages in the upcoming months.
You can the download Outlook Social Connector for your language at the Microsoft Download Center.
Lastly, we are also releasing an update to the Outlook Social Connector for Outlook 2010. This update is distributed through Microsoft Update.
To learn more about the Outlook Social Connector, see this introductory article.
With today’s updates:
You can add friends and colleagues to Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Windows Live, directly from the Outlook People Pane.
When viewing a message from someone, you see real-time updates from his or her activities on Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Windows Live. You see information that your friends and co-workers have made public on those sites, as long as the email address they are using to communicate with you has been added to their account settings on the social network.
We believe that the information you share through social networks is a matter of personal choice. You should decide whether to share very little, or reveal a lot about yourself. You might decide to share information only with your friends, or share details with everyone. You might decide to have a strong division between personal networks and professional ones, or between social networking and email. The Outlook Social Connector respects what you decide to share through social networks. Other people using the Outlook Social Connector can only see information about you based on what you have made public to them on social networks and the email address in your profile on the social network.
You can review our privacy policy here. You can also review those of our partners by visiting their sites to understand each option and help make your personal choices to protect your privacy.
View Video
Format: wmv
Duration: 6:37
How is social networking and Outlook working for you? We look forward to your comments.
Randy Byrne, Program Manager, Microsoft Outlook
Alessio Roic, Program Manager, Microsoft Outlook
Paco Contreras Herrera, Group Product Manager, Microsoft Office
Mar/100
Get the Outlook Social Connector for MySpace Today!
This post is syndicated from Microsoft Outlook 2010.
The Outlook team is excited to announce the availability of MySpace for Outlook, bringing another valued partner into the Outlook Social Connector and providing you with more ways to connect and stay up-to-date with friends and colleagues.
MySpace for Outlook enables you to view activity updates for friends and colleagues in the People Pane, synchronize your MySpace contact list to your Outlook contacts, and get one-click access to profiles.
See the press release on the MySpace Web site for more information, or go to the download page to get the provider.
Remember, if your computer is running the Outlook 2010 Beta, you must update the Outlook Social Connector before installing. See the instructions in our last post for more details on updating the Outlook Social Connector.
Thanks!
Michael Affronti
Mar/100
Get the Outlook Social Connector for MySpace Today!
This post is syndicated from Microsoft Outlook 2010.
The Outlook team is excited to announce the availability of MySpace for Outlook, bringing another valued partner into the Outlook Social Connector and providing you with more ways to connect and stay up-to-date with friends and colleagues.
MySpace for Outlook enables you to view activity updates for friends and colleagues in the People Pane, synchronize your MySpace contact list to your Outlook contacts, and get one-click access to profiles.
See the press release on the MySpace Web site for more information, or go to the download page to get the provider.
Remember, if your computer is running the Outlook 2010 Beta, you must update the Outlook Social Connector before installing. See the instructions in our last post for more details on updating the Outlook Social Connector.
Thanks!
Michael Affronti
Feb/100
Outlook Gets Social with LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace
This post is syndicated from Microsoft Outlook 2010.
Update:
We have heard that some Microsoft Outlook 2010 Beta users are experiencing crashes when trying to use the new Outlook Social Connector (OSC) Beta (February Update) that was released today along with the LinkedIn Provider for Outlook.
The OSC that was included with the Outlook 2010 Beta must be uninstalled before installing the new OSC Beta (February Update). After the February OSC update is installed, the LinkedIn Provider for Outlook can then be installed.
This information is included on our Download Center page for the OSC Beta (February Update).
If you have installed the OSC Beta (February Update) and Outlook is crashing, follow the steps outlined on this page. As a reminder, only 32-bit Outlook is supported right now. 64-bit support for the OSC will be available soon.
In November 2009, we announced both the beta of Microsoft Office 2010 as well as the Outlook Social Connector. The Outlook Social Connector brings together communications history, contact information, and professional and social networking information into the Outlook experience.
We are continuing to deliver on that vision today with two new announcements. First, we’re proud to announce the public beta of LinkedIn for Outlook, which will enable our millions of Office 2010 Beta users to connect the OSC to a public network for the first time. Second, we're excited to announce partnerships with Facebook — the most popular social Web site in the world, and MySpace — a leading social platform connecting people through expression, content, and culture.
LinkedIn for Outlook brings together the most popular professional network with the world’s leading professional Inbox. Here are some of the things you can do today by downloading the beta:
- Connect to your LinkedIn account to view your colleagues’ status updates and photos next to an e-mail message they sent you.
- Your colleagues’ latest contact information from LinkedIn automatically updates his or her Outlook contact. Whenever someone changes a phone number, e-mail address, or other contact details, it’s automatically updated in Outlook — you are always up to date.
- Synchronize your mobile phone with Outlook to stay up-to-date — you don’t have to worry about keeping track of new phone numbers and contact info — contacts’ information from the Web is synchronized to your mobile phone.
- Grow your professional network directly from within your Inbox — add colleagues with one click.
We are proud to continue partnering with LinkedIn and we want to congratulate them on a job well done. With this beta, our customers are able to stay connected to their network without leaving the Outlook Inbox.
Our vision for Outlook (and the OSC) is to provide a communications hub that is vital to both professional and personal communications; by integrating with both Facebook and MySpace, Outlook 2010 enables you to connect not only to co-workers and colleagues, but with all of your friends and family within your Outlook Inbox.
Facebook for Outlook
You can view friends’ activities, photos, and status updates within Outlook — as well as grow your network by adding friends from the same view. Both Facebook for Outlook and MySpace for Outlook will be available later this year as our official release of Office 2010 approaches.
Finally, its important to mention that with multiple professional and social networks available for the Outlook Social Connector, the design of the OSC is such that your privacy and permissions settings on each of the networks you use are represented and respected within this experience. For example, if your profile photo and job title are publicly listed on a given network, then OSC users will see your photo and job title when receiving an e-mail from you (if they use that same network). Similarly, if you choose to restrict profile access on a given network, the OSC will respect that privacy. The goal of the OSC is not to create another social network or set of privacy settings for you to manage, but rather to bring the networks you already value and use to the Outlook experience.
To recap, here is what you can do today to get started with the Outlook Social Connector.
- Download the Office 2010 Beta at www.Office.com/beta
- Update to the latest version of the Outlook Social Connector using the instructions on the Microsoft Download Center.
- Get the LinkedIn download for the Outlook Social Connector at www.LinkedIn.com/outlook.
- Keep watching the Outlook team blog for availability of the Facebook and MySpace download for the Outlook Social Connector at http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/.
Note To use LinkedIn for Outlook requires the latest version of the Outlook Social Connector, which supports the 32-bit English version of the official Microsoft Office 2010 Beta. The beta of the Outlook Social Connector is provided as-is, is subject to change without notice, and does not include formal product support from Microsoft.
We are thrilled to reach this significant milestone with LinkedIn and to welcome both Facebook and MySpace to the Outlook Social Connector ecosystem. Stay tuned to this blog for more information from the Outlook team as we get closer to the launch of Office 2010!
Dev Balasubramanian – Outlook Product Manager
Michael Affronti – Outlook Program Manager
Feb/100
Outlook Gets Social with LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace
This post is syndicated from Microsoft Outlook 2010.
Update:
We have heard that some Microsoft Outlook 2010 Beta users are experiencing crashes when trying to use the new Outlook Social Connector (OSC) Beta (February Update) that was released today along with the LinkedIn Provider for Outlook.
The OSC that was included with the Outlook 2010 Beta must be uninstalled before installing the new OSC Beta (February Update). After the February OSC update is installed, the LinkedIn Provider for Outlook can then be installed.
This information is included on our Download Center page for the OSC Beta (February Update).
If you have installed the OSC Beta (February Update) and Outlook is crashing, follow the steps outlined on this page. As a reminder, only 32-bit Outlook is supported right now. 64-bit support for the OSC will be available soon.
In November 2009, we announced both the beta of Microsoft Office 2010 as well as the Outlook Social Connector. The Outlook Social Connector brings together communications history, contact information, and professional and social networking information into the Outlook experience.
We are continuing to deliver on that vision today with two new announcements. First, we’re proud to announce the public beta of LinkedIn for Outlook, which will enable our millions of Office 2010 Beta users to connect the OSC to a public network for the first time. Second, we're excited to announce partnerships with Facebook — the most popular social Web site in the world, and MySpace — a leading social platform connecting people through expression, content, and culture.
LinkedIn for Outlook brings together the most popular professional network with the world’s leading professional Inbox. Here are some of the things you can do today by downloading the beta:
- Connect to your LinkedIn account to view your colleagues’ status updates and photos next to an e-mail message they sent you.
- Your colleagues’ latest contact information from LinkedIn automatically updates his or her Outlook contact. Whenever someone changes a phone number, e-mail address, or other contact details, it’s automatically updated in Outlook — you are always up to date.
- Synchronize your mobile phone with Outlook to stay up-to-date — you don’t have to worry about keeping track of new phone numbers and contact info — contacts’ information from the Web is synchronized to your mobile phone.
- Grow your professional network directly from within your Inbox — add colleagues with one click.
We are proud to continue partnering with LinkedIn and we want to congratulate them on a job well done. With this beta, our customers are able to stay connected to their network without leaving the Outlook Inbox.
Our vision for Outlook (and the OSC) is to provide a communications hub that is vital to both professional and personal communications; by integrating with both Facebook and MySpace, Outlook 2010 enables you to connect not only to co-workers and colleagues, but with all of your friends and family within your Outlook Inbox.
Facebook for Outlook
You can view friends’ activities, photos, and status updates within Outlook — as well as grow your network by adding friends from the same view. Both Facebook for Outlook and MySpace for Outlook will be available later this year as our official release of Office 2010 approaches.
Finally, its important to mention that with multiple professional and social networks available for the Outlook Social Connector, the design of the OSC is such that your privacy and permissions settings on each of the networks you use are represented and respected within this experience. For example, if your profile photo and job title are publicly listed on a given network, then OSC users will see your photo and job title when receiving an e-mail from you (if they use that same network). Similarly, if you choose to restrict profile access on a given network, the OSC will respect that privacy. The goal of the OSC is not to create another social network or set of privacy settings for you to manage, but rather to bring the networks you already value and use to the Outlook experience.
To recap, here is what you can do today to get started with the Outlook Social Connector.
- Download the Office 2010 Beta at www.Office.com/beta
- Update to the latest version of the Outlook Social Connector using the instructions on the Microsoft Download Center.
- Get the LinkedIn download for the Outlook Social Connector at www.LinkedIn.com/outlook.
- Keep watching the Outlook team blog for availability of the Facebook and MySpace download for the Outlook Social Connector at http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/.
Note To use LinkedIn for Outlook requires the latest version of the Outlook Social Connector, which supports the 32-bit English version of the official Microsoft Office 2010 Beta. The beta of the Outlook Social Connector is provided as-is, is subject to change without notice, and does not include formal product support from Microsoft.
We are thrilled to reach this significant milestone with LinkedIn and to welcome both Facebook and MySpace to the Outlook Social Connector ecosystem. Stay tuned to this blog for more information from the Outlook team as we get closer to the launch of Office 2010!
Dev Balasubramanian – Outlook Product Manager
Michael Affronti – Outlook Program Manager