The Outlook Social Connector appears as a horizontal pane -- called the People Pane -- underneath the content of your current e-mail message (in other words, just underneath Outlook's Reading Pane). It not only connects you with social networks, but also serves as a central point for all of your communications with anyone in Outlook.

When you highlight an e-mail, the pane will show you by default a list of all the recent communications between you and the sender or receiver of that e-mail: e-mails, meetings, RSS feeds, attachments and LinkedIn status updates. You can also choose to see only any one type of communications -- only e-mail, for example, or only status updates -- by clicking on icons on the left side of the pane. To view details about any communication -- for example, to see a full email, not just the subject line -- click the link for the content, and it will open in a separate Outlook window.

The People Pane can be turned on and off via Outlook's View menu, and you can change the size of the pane as well.

The People Pane by itself, regardless of its connection to social networks, is a worthy addition to Outlook, because it lets you immediately see all communications with an individual. It's a considerable productivity booster, because there's no longer any need to search for past e-mails you've exchanged with someone -- you can see them all in a list. Even if the Outlook Social Connector added only this feature, it would be worth the download.