Recently (2 days ago) Google released their own Instant Messanger program, in a beta release. If you would like to try it out, go to this link http://www.google.com/talk to download the free app. It's a 900KB download, so even those on 56k modems can get it in minutes.
What I've seen so far in GIM:
Automatic addition of all your Gmail contacts to your friends list
Check your Gmail from the app.
Custom away messages, as of now, do not save when you sign out
There is not a way to change fonts or and other richtext options yet, will be in a later release
The only text formatting I know of is when you type with an asterisk on each side of your text, it shows up in bold. I.E *hello* will display as hello
You can invite anyone from outside of Gmail to a gmail account, and GoogleTalk at teh same time, with 3 easy steps.
Unfortunately, GoogleTalk is in beta stages, and is only open to users who have a Gmail account.

I just checked out the website myself, and the program looks promising. I guess my problem would whether to use AIM, Skype or Googletalk - since I have a gmail account already.

SPAM!!!! Google Talk topic already started over here. No more replies allowed until someone can report the first post with a good reason for its opening.

We can't have two topics about the same thing so...

//Warned
//Locked