A brief outline of what to expect from the Outlook Social Connector (via MSDN blog):

• The People Pane A name, picture, and title for your colleagues whenever reading a message from them.
• Rich history See a rich communications history for each person that sends you messages with one-click access to the most recent messages and attachments.
• Activities Download and see real-time activity for your colleagues from business and social networks.
• Get friendly Request someone as a colleague or friend with one click. Synchronize those colleagues with Outlook and keep them up-to-date as their information changes.
• SharePoint 2010 Connect to the new MySite social networking experience right out of the box with the OSC & SharePoint 2010.
• Extensible A public SDK allows anyone to build a connection to business or consumer social networks.

It’s now available on Outlook 2010 Beta and we’re wondering about the Outlook Social Connector.  Has anyone been using it?  It seems like Outlook’s version of Google Buzz with the mission of LinkedIn.  Have we reached the copycat era of social media or is there going to be a real breakthrough in connecting with people?  With the onslaught of real-time results, we’re thinking that we’ll need a predictive formula.  This social media plug-in will predict where all of your friends will be going and what they will be doing based on their past entries…  It’s Tuesday.  Amber is going to go to the Starbucks on King St. and will tweet about their delicious bran muffins at approximately 9:18am.  Oh [big] brother!

Source: Michael Affronti, MSDN

Today, I was buzzed at work.  Okay, forgive the terrible pun.  The office mates and I were discussing whether or not we like Google’s latest venture into social media.  Carly, our SEO Manager, has the mobile version on her phone and likes that it shows people nearby.  However, we are all fairly unimpressed with the Gmail version.  It feels like a mass Instant Message and G chat status.  It’s nice that it automatically follows friends, but it’s also odd that you cannot be voluntarily anonymous like on Twitter.  Also, how are we encouraged to find and follow more people?  On the mobile version, we can find people near us.  On the Gmail version, we are talking to the people we already talked to.  With Twitter; however, I can search by area or trending topic and find people interested in the same things as I am.  We’re all unsure which category to fit Buzz into.  Isn’t it going to drive me crazy to see everyone’s constant flow of Picasa, Flickr and Google Reader activity?  I already turned on my filter so that my inbox won’t be flooded with replies from friends.  What is your opinion of this latest craze?  Will it fade in and out like Google Wave or be the proverbial “Twitter killer”?

We are all anticipating the arrival of the Google Buzz icon in our gmail inboxes.  Google has announced that it will be rolling out its new product within the next few days and if you already have a Gmail account, you will automatically have a Google Buzz account.  Buzz will also start following the people you chat and e-mail with the most.  Search Engine Land has a thorough article about everything the new product will offer, but here are some key features that are exciting us for Google Buzz:

No sign-up or setup.

Sharing pictures, websites, status updates, messages, etc. can be completely public or limited to just your friends.

Buzz can display updates from other sites like Flickr, Picasa and Twitter.

Buzz will recommend other people’s updates and put them in your feed according to your interests (and it has a ‘not interested’ feature).

Buzz Mobile will have all of these features, but additionally, will focus on more location-specific updates.

Check out this demo on YouTube:

What do you think about the addition of Buzz to your social media arsenal?  Is it going to be a Twitter or Facebook killer?  For location-specific posts, it will be very interesting to see how it interacts with the blogging world.

On today’s Twitter trending topics, you will see Haiti and Yele in spots number one and two.  Twitter has become instrumental for getting the word out about worldwide crises and how to help.  The American Red Cross has joined in by assigning a number for people to text and donate.  When you text 909-99, you will donate $10 to go directly to the aid of the Haiti earthquake victims (showing up on your phone bill for that month).  The updates can be quickly seen on Google Real Time Search Results:

Yele is a program developed by recording artist Wyclef Jean committed to keeping the spirit, heart and pride of the Haiti people intact.  He, too, assigned a number (501501) to automatically donate $5 to the disaster relief of Haitians after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake.

Photo courtesy of getclickz.com

Happy New Year everyone!  The new decade is being ushered in with the onset of Google Caffeine, but does not have a debut date just yet.  According to Official Wire, Caffeine is actually just a souped-up version of the Google we already know- with faster speed, emphasis on real-time search results and slight changes to the way Google indexes websites.  It is imperative; however, that websites stay up-to-date in order to maintain relevancy in the search results.  Things like blogs, press releases, social media, etc. will need to be integrated into your business marketing and maintained with the introduction of Caffeine.  Most users might not notice a difference in their web results, but “keeping websites fresh through regular updates will be important to ensure that they are crawled by Caffeine” (Crisafi).

Source: Peter Crisafi, Official Wire

Photo courtesy of Bing

Bing has had a deal in place for the last week to integrate Facebook status updates and tweets from Twitter into Real Time Search Results.  Google announced their deal with Twitter last week as well, also announcing that Facebook updates would also be made available soon.  However, today Google released their deal with Facebook and revealed that only status updates from Facebook pages would be available in their search results (ie: not personal pages, but company pages).  Bing will also have the personal status updates, not just public Facebook pages.  The reason?  Facebook says, “The terms of the Google deal were specifically related to public updates on Pages. But our conversations with both companies are continually evolving regarding ways in which we might work together in the future.”

Sources: Search Engine Land, Bing.com

Photo courtesy of greatdance.com

In case you were wondering, Social Media is taking over the world.  Facebook statistics are astounding!  Over 350 million users with 50% of them logging on daily.  What does this have to do with marketing? Well, the fact is simple.  If you create a Facebook Fan Page, you are sure to promote your product or company in an organic way (through people “liking it” and sharing with others).  Facebook is comprised of the younger and older, friends, siblings, parents, grandparents, colleagues, students, and the list goes on!  Essentially, it reaches everyone.  With people actively using it every day, it is easy to see why it would be a great marketing tool.  Visiture can help you create profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or help you optimize the ones you already have.  Because these sites have so many pages pointing to them and are being updated so frequently, they are often at the top of the natural results on Google and Yahoo!.

I have witnessed many websites using Twitter to promote e-commerce in a variety of creative ways.  Most recently, I participated in a ModCloth.com giveaway.  ModCloth sells vintage items from dresses to apartment decor.  They do not have a physical store, so they have had to rely on Internet Marketing and word of mouth to expand their customer base.  When they got to a large number of followers on Twitter, ModCloth “celebrated” by giving away a $1,000 gift certificate to their site.  It understandably got a lot of press on Twitter, with new people following them to participate in the contest.

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