It is a way of communicating to certain individuals in a community rather than just friends, often used for war games and steam games, it is becoming increasingly popular in Minecraft for some reason. It is a great way to voice chat but still keep your personal identity safe from online weirdos.

All in all I do not use it, but it is something I have downloaded at all times, just in case.

Teamspeak is a voice server. It is a downloaded application. You enter the IP of the voice server, and connect to it. This will bring you to the main chat room. The owner of the server can create different channels, for the server, like staff room, kitpvp server, faction server, etc. You can also add permissions like moderator, who can kick,ban, mute, etc on the server. I would not compare this to skype. You can try out my Teamspeak server. The Teamspeak server ip is ts3.twistedmc.net .

I would not compare TeamSpeak to Skype. Though they are both methods of talking with voice over the internet, they are two separate genres. TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, and Mumble are all voice software that allows individuals to log into hosted voice servers and talk with others using their voice. If you are unable or unwilling to talk you can type, though this is often not paid attention to nearly as much as voice. Once you try out a voice server, you quickly realize that when possible, you want to always use voice because it is an easier method of communication, and less is lost in translation. It is great for group conversations.

A teamspeak server allows members of a community to talk to one another. Its like skype.