First noticed by Matt Gibstein and posted on Twitter last night was a “chat” button available for searchers to click on to initiate a Google Chat or Google Hangout chat session with the business.

I personally see it live for a search on [dizengoff] but when I click on the “chat” button, it goes to a 403 error page.

Here is what the search result box looks like on the right side, where you see the local box:

When you click on it, it takes you to a URL that looks like this:

https://plus.google.com/_/merchants/chat/107711408329563273778?src=lu-kp

Now, I get this 403 error:

But Matt saw the chat box come up:

Mike Blumenthal said on his blog that he knew about this test for a while and also shared the email Google sent out about this:

Forum discussion at Twitter.