Update: Mac users might be out of luck on this tip. A Mac to PC chat with Gizmo recorded perfectly on the Windows client, but the Mac recording was unusable. The Gizmo team is aware and hopes to update the client soon.

Last week the Download Squad team turned us on to Gizmo; a Skype-like voice over internet protocol (VoIP) client. Much like Skype, Gizmo allows you make free PC to PC calls and you can also call out to a regular phone from your PC using the Gizmo application. Sure, that's all well and good, but that's not good enough for us here at Weblogs, Inc! See, Gizmo has one function that Skype doesn't have: a "Record" button.

We got to thinking, "Gee, folks use Skype in conjunction with other applications to record podcasts. Can we record a podcast or an interview with Gizmo alone?" You bet we can! Marc Orchant (Office Weblog and Tablet Weblog) rang me up on Gizmo the other day and we gave this a try. It worked like a charm and provided the output as an uncompressed WAV file, which is ideal to base a podcast around. Here is a 13-second sample of our conversation.

It was simple process to encode the source file as an .mp3 file, which appears to be the main standard for podcasts at this point. Unless Skype adds a recording feature, Gizmo might gain a large following very fast; perhaps even rivalling Skype's 100-million plus downloads.