• Mashable et al., Tuesday, July 13, 2010 1:34 PM

Like some unstoppable supernatural force that corrupts everything it touches, Facebook is steadily remaking the Web in its own image. Last month, Yahoo integrated Facebook's features directly onto its homepage and social Pulse feature. Now comes word that Microsoft has integrated Facebook and Windows Live Messenger into Outlook, which will bring Facebook newsfeeds into millions of user inboxes.

Last year, Microsoft launched Outlook Social Connector, a plug-in that syncs social networking feeds with one's Outlook contacts, giving you immediate data on what they are doing and thinking. LinkedIn was the first network to integrate with Outlook Social Connector.

Yet, "The entire experience is a step above the Outlook-LinkedIn integration," reports Mashable. "Not only does it pull Facebook profile photos so that you can associate a name to a face, but it pulls the news feeds of your contacts into your inbox ... When you're looking at someone's email, you'll also get a glance at their status updates, picture uploads and wall posts, among other activities."

Similarly, the tools released last month By Yahoo allow people to connect their Yahoo and Facebook accounts, access their entire news feed on Yahoo, and share content created with their friends.

"I am pretty ambivalent on the whole email and social integration craze," writes Marketing Pilgrim's Frank Reed. "Google has tried it and it's not going so well," he said referring to Google Buzz.

Still, falling into Facebook's clutches or not, Microsoft's decision to work more closely with the social net was generally applauded on Tuesday.

"In four years, social networking services will replace email for about 20 percent of business users says Gartner," notes Digital Daily. "If that's true than Microsoft's integration of Facebook into its Outlook e-mail client today will prove particularly prescient."

"Provided the new integration isn't too overbearing or annoying, this could be a pretty nice feature for Outlook users to have an easier way to know what their contacts are up to," writes a more measured Fast Company. "It'd be even better if it included, say, Twitter and Foursquare support as well, but that could well come later."

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