There's a revolution in the air. VoIP and IM is coverging and changing the way we communicate. Woo Hoo!

But at the moment it kinda sucks. MSN Messenger is my preferred way of chatting to folks, and sure it's got a nice VoIP/Video function to talk to other MSNers (and if you're in the US you can call real people) but it doesn't talk to Skype where a bunch of my less computer-centric folks prefer to hang out (they like to make phone calls for cheap)

And then Skype on my cellphone doesn't work too well (but the MSN client is nice) and in Aus the GPRS costs are way too high for it to be worth doing anyway.

Despite that though, the folks at t@lkster appear to be on the right track - all the benefits of Skype and other dedicated VoIP solutions (Project Gizmo, Engin, MyNetPhone etc) but with a bit of cross-platform presence smarts thrown in (for now the plan includes MSN and GTalk integration - only hope the future offers the missing Skype link)

Until it's up and running in the wild I'm a bit sceptical. I had huge hopes for Jabber back in the day as the tool to integrate all the IM platforms but it never really lived up to the promise.

Genuine cross-product voice, IM, video and (of course) presence that is seamless for the end user is a real holy grail. Of course, making it work and getting paid for it (but making it an affoardable solution) is almost as big a challenge!