Google Talk IM service goes dark

Google Talk, the instant messaging service, went down Thursday morning. Google is "aware of a problem" but has not yet estimated when the service will return.

Anyone wondering why they don’t see many friends or contacts online via Google Talk’s instant messaging list, rest assure that it isn’t due to zombie uprising.

The Google Talk service has been down for the majority of users this morning. Some users are able to sign in, but have no access to their contact lists. Those that can see contacts online are unable to message them. The outage extends to Android services and basically anything else that accesses Google Talk (Gmail, iMessages, Adium X, etc.).

Google, however, is aware of the outage. The company’s App Status Dashboard currently states: “We’re aware of a problem with Google Talk affecting a majority of users. The affected users are able to access Google Talk, but are seeing error messages and/or other unexpected behavior.”

Unfortunately, Google didn’t offer an estimate on how long it would take to fix the problem. It’s also unfortunate for Google because some of its users now have a good reason to check out the official version of Apple’s recently launched “Messages” desktop app for OS X Mountain Lion.