Office 2010 beta, Outlook, meet Facebook

The just-released Microsoft Office 2010 beta shows Microsoft's vision for integrating Office with the greater Internet. Most notably, it introduces a potentially powerful Outlook feature that can combine your e-mail with social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Also on display is the Web-based version of Office, another way Microsoft is trying to make sure that Office is no longer the island it has been for too long. However, that is marred somewhat by the lack of some important features in the Web-based version of Office, such as the ability to create charts in Excel.

Like the previously released Technical Preview, the beta also incrementally improves Microsoft's best-selling Office suite, putting the Ribbon at center stage as the default interface for all Office applications, powering up individual apps with tools such as built-in video editing, and including a variety of productivity enhancers, such as a better paste operation.

One of the most significant changes to Office is not an interface change, but a feature that could dramatically improve the way people connect with others and share information. Called Outlook Social Connector, the new feature has a twofold purpose: to track all of your e-mail and other history with each specific contact, and to extend Outlook's reach beyond Office to the Internet and social networking sites.

When you're reading an e-mail message to or from someone, the Connector appears at the bottom of your message in its own separate pane. The pane displays a history of your communications with that person in Outlook -- e-mail messages, attachments exchanged, meetings scheduled in Outlook, and so on. You can see all these items in one big list or click a tab to view just one type -- for example, just e-mails you've exchanged with that contact -- then click an item to go directly to it.