The Google Talk beta is now live. The IM client uses your Gmail account and has built in voice functionalities similar to those offered by Skype and Yahoo! Messenger. I'm looking forward to using this, but I can't see any contacts yet. If you're installing it and want to test it out, you can add me as a contact. My handle is jibbajabba (of course).

Mac users can sign onto Google Talk using a client such as iChat or Adium by setting up a new account. Google Talk uses Jabber. Instructions for configuring a Jabber account on non Google Talk clients are available. This thread TUAW.com goes over specific settings for getting it to work in iChat. Note that the server is talk.google.com, not talk.gmail.com.

Pretty cool, and should certainly send a warning out to Skype. If they refine this product until it's a viable replacement for regular voice calling (e.g. include in and out calling to regular phone numbers), I can see using this more frequently. But, I hate the idea of having to do this all on a PC. The voice functionalities only work on the Google Talk client, and that client like a lot of other Google software including Desktop Search doesn't work on a Mac. I wish the guys at Google would commit a little bit to making software that works on the Mac OS as well.