Those who have been using Steam as their gaming platform of choice will know about a little built in feature called the browser. It isn’t your average browser. It’s actually integrated in to Steam’s in game interface which over lays what ever game you happen to be playing at the time. It isn’t very fancy, it doesn’t support tabs or even a right click menu. It does however support javascript and most of the functionality of Google’s web apps. This includes mail and Google Docs. That last one is what I wanted to focus on in this post.

Steam plus Google Docs makes a wonderful platform for writing about games. More specifically writing reviews that some times require using names and places specific to the game that are easy to find when you are playing but not as easy when you are searching the web. A simple two button combination switches between live game play and your word processor. What could be better for writing about such dynamic content as games?

You also have access to the IM and chat client built in so you can bounce your ideas off your gamer friends. As well as get input and feedback on what you’ve all ready written. You can use it to get quotes to add some spice to your write up. Community and game groups also give you some data and statistics on how many people are playing a particular game which is also very useful. So many wonderful uses for the system!

Of course it doesn’t have be limited to Google docs and I could see this being useful in quite a few ways. Blogging is another similar use of the system. Simply fire up your web based blogging interface and you are set to go. Twitter would be another great use for it. Tweet your clan matches or LAN party games as they happen. You can even use Pandora radio to give your game an alternate sound track. What other crazy things can you come up with to use the steam built in browser for?