Microsoft today announced a new feature of Office 2010 that will integrate information from social networks into the next version of its widely used Outlook email program. Business-oriented social network LinkedIn said it would be the first social network to support the feature, dubbed the Outlook Social Connector.

The feature will let people track the activities of their LinkedIn connections, email them, and send invitations to connect from within a new "People Pane" inside Outlook. Microsoft says the Outlook Social Connector is available in preliminary form with today's public beta release of Office 2010.

LinkedIn says its functionality will be available early next year. It follows the company's recent announcement of a partnership with Twitter that lets LinkedIn users tweet their LinkedIn status updates.

The Outlook team says in in its blog post that the feature will also work with networks from Microsoft's own Windows Live and SharePoint 2010. It notes that other social networks will also be able to build similar connections into the Microsoft email program.

The functionality looks similar in some respects to the tool offered by Seattle-based Gist, a Paul Allen-backed company, to bring together messages and information from a variety of social networks and email providers, including Outlook and LinkedIn. We've sent a message to the company to gauge its reaction, and we'll update this post depending on the response.