Just a quick post to say that yes google is releasing an IM thingy today, and yes it is using Jabber, and yes you can get it to work in iChat.

Follow these easy steps:

1. You have to have a gmail account, if you don't I have 148 invites, let me know and I can give you one.
2. Open iChat and go to Preferences > Accounts and create a new account with account type Jabber
3. In the username field you need to place your gmail email addy, so say bob@gmail.com
4. Then add your gmail password.
5. iChat will auto fill the server field with gmail.com, which is incorrect.  You need to change that to talk.google.com
6. And then name the account whatever you want.

And that is it, you should now be able to log into google's IM service.  One issue though, the first time you log in, iChat will present you with a dialog that tells you that this is an 'Non-secure Jabber Login'.  If this bothers you, then by all means hit 'Cancel'.

I haven't had any time to really test the new service, although since it is Jabber it should rawk.  For those who know me, email/message me in IM for my Jabber ID.

Oh and just let me say that I am very pissed off that google did not see fit to release this for Mac as well.  The windows beta apparently allows you to call people ala Skype, with the added bonus of it being free, and ad-less.

Very disappointing google, very disappointing indeed.