Steam Community Update Beta is Upon Us

Yesterday afternoon, Steam's Community Update Beta went live. They've been talking about it all week with small updates but now 50,000 users were given the opportunity to take it for a spin. Those users (who had a Pillar of Steam Community badge) were granted a key into the beta. Actually, they were granted two keys - one for themselves and one for a friend. So that means there's actually double the opportunity to get into the beta if you haven't already.

What did this update bring to the table? It's all about making friend interaction and communities on the site much more interactive. The Friends tab now lets you post status updates and your friends can comment or "like" them. For users with tons of people on their friends list, you can now give them specific nicknames which will never change even if they change their display name.

For each user their content has been updated as well. Instead of being in a small, clunky to navigate area, your photos and videos will now all be put together in a nicer fashion. They will also display on the Friends page as visual updates which definitely helps give them more attention.

The biggest changes come to the Community tab which is now finally living up to its name. Basically, it increases focus on user-generated content and allows for more discussion about each game. You can read more about it right here. If you didn't manage to try out the beta yet then just wait around a bit as more invites will be handed out soon.


Have you checked out the Community Beta? What do you think of it so far?