#1 Social Integration

Gmail fills the right column in the mailbox with contact information about the person you’re emailing. It draws that information from LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook once you’ve logged in to those services and will even show you the LinkedIn job title and latest status updates from the contact you’re emailing.

Outlook.com will do the same displaying it in a little bit simpler, cleaner way that follows the Metro UI style. Here you can not only view people in your social networks from within Outlook.com and see their latest updates, but from the “People hub” you can also respond to status updates on Twitter and write on someone’s Facebook wall. You can also do Facebook chat within Outlook.com, which is certainly better integrated and more usable than GTalk in Gmail.

Bottom line

Outlook.com is definitely aimed squarely at Gmail even at its look and feel. There’s some really useful innovation in there, and privacy safety is very good. It means Outlook.com won’t be nearly as powerful of a money-maker as Gmail, but it could build some needed goodwill from users. Hall said, “If you’re a heavy Google Docs or a Google+ user, then Gmail is probably for you. Otherwise, if you use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Office, then Outlook.com is better.”