I’ve been testing the new version of Office 2010 (or Office 14) for some time now. One of the new features in the Outlook program is the possibility to integrate with social networks through the means of social providers. Currently out-of-the-box there is a provider for Microsoft Sharepoint and a strategic partnership with LinkedIn to provide a provider for their network.

However you are free to develop your own osc (outlook social connector) providers. Currently I’m trying to write one for integrating Twitter. It’s going nicely, but it’s not finished yet. I’ve hit some bumps along the road and with some feedback from the friendly devs over at Microsoft I’m now finishing the first version of an ‘Outlook Social Connector for Twitter’. When it is finished I promise to release the entire code on Codeplex as a real world reference sample for other developers to create osc providers.