Microsoft Outlook Is Starting To Look Like A Poor Man’s Xobni

As we first reported on Friday, Microsoft is adding some social hooks into Outlook 2010. Outlook will gain the ability to pull in profile information, photos, and update streams from LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace. You can try the LinkedIn plugin now in beta. The other social networks will be added later when Outlook 2010 goes on sale, probably in July. The new social features make it look a lot more like Xobni , the social email startup backed by Vinod Khosla that Microsoft looked at buying nearly two years ago. Well, a poor man's Xobni. With Xobni, which itself is a plugin for Outlook , you can pull in relevant contact information, photos, and social stream data from both LinkedIn and Facebook today. It also supports Twitter , and Hoover's information on companies. Salesforce integration is currently in beta, and SharePoint is coming soon.