[Alex_Hong]

As many of you know, the PlayBook OS 2.0 was launched yesterday. I had a short go with it before my PlayBook's battery malfunctioned and had to go in for repairs. My greatest takeaway or i should say amazement, was the social integration in the contacts app. Where you get everything in one single screen.

However, today I'm going to talk about the tight integration of social networking within the soon to be obsolete BBOS.

I know that RIM acquired a couple of company to make the integration in OS 2.0 possible, notably Gist. So i wanted to give it a try, to make my Contacts on my 9900 more "sociable". However i was immediately hit with a problem. Gist requires a sign up, a Gist Account of sorts. I really didn't want to go through all that trouble of signing up for another service. I then remembered the twitter and facebook app on my 9900, and their tight integration to the OS.

I quickly found the option to "link to BlackBerry Contacts" option within twitter and facebook. I spent a good amount of time linking my own contacts, with the contacts i have on twitter and facebook.

After i was done, the result was more than satisfying. When a contact is link to facebook, his/her profile picture is automatically set as the contact picture on your phone. Plus, a calendar reminder would automatically be set up on your phone for his/her's birthday. To send him/her a facebook message, or write on the wall, you simply look in your contacts, and tap on his/her facebook username and you're good to go. No need to even open the app. Same thing applies to twitter as well, simply use the contacts app on your phone.

(one thing to note would be under the facebook options. You can check the box that says contacts, but then 3 more check boxes will appear below. Be sure to take note of those settings. One of the option keeps the profile photo of your friend in sync with the contact photo you have on your phone. The other basically sends out your friends information to facebook. So be sure to uncheck those.)

This is what i meant by integration. To post a photo, just go into your photos, or take a photo. Press menu. Send to twitter/facebook. All done without even opening the app itself. Something that other platforms are still playing catch up with.

Now that i have linked all of my contacts to their respective social networking account, my contacts app on my 9900 has become rather "sociable" as well. Most of my contacts have a display photo, and i must say it looks damn good.

(I know, many of you might already know this. But to me, i only found out about this today. So i wanted to share with those who are relatively new to BlackBerry like me, about this amazing integration)