Valve Software (more specifically, the team that does the Steam platform) recently started the public beta offering of the Steam Community service. If you’ve used Microsoft’s Games for Windows Live service before, it might feel similar in what it does. I gave it a shot today, poking around the web app they have as well as the updated interface to the Steam client. At it’s very core, it beefs up the Tracker (aka ‘Friends’) features significantly, making it a far more reliable IM service than previously offered.

I must say, it feels sort of like a cross between a messenger and a social networking app. A Facebook tailored for gamers. I’m intrigued as to how it will pan out. I’m all for better experience when it comes to matchmaking features. At the very least once it’s rolled out to the entire population of gamers that use Steam, it will be a good user profiling tool for Valve . I really dig the closely tied infrastructure between the Steam Client and the web app, it makes for a pretty seamless experience moving between the two.

P.S. I’ve added a few more photos to my NYC trip Flickr set. It looks like I’m about half way through culling the best of the best of what I took.