Despite some shortcomings, the Outlook Social Connector is a powerful, free add-in to Outlook. The LinkedIn connector available is useful, but when other connectors are released, notably for Facebook, the Outlook Social Connector will become even more important by a significant order of magnitude. And it's useful not just for social networks, but for giving Outlook features it currently lacks, notably an easy way to see all communications you've had with a contact.

Keep in mind that it is still in beta, so be careful about installing it on a production machine. But if you're a user of Outlook 2003, 2007, or a beta user of Outlook 2010, it's well worth the download.