Google Voice: Another reason Google will rule the world
I’m impressed by Google Voice, a new and basically free service that gives you a single phone number that rings all your phones, saves your voicemail online, and transcribes your voicemail to text.
Other cool features include the ability to listen in on messages while they are being left and the ability to make low cost international calls.
It’s not officially open to everyone yet. Instead, it’s by invitation only, a tactic Google has used before that slowly ramps up user scale and keeps the system from being overwhelmed. It also builds demands as the early adapters share their experience, those who are still uninvited want in.
One of the features I like is the ability to record incoming calls at any time by pressing “4″ on my phone’s dialpad.
There are two flavors. The most versatile is with a Google number. That’s a brand new phone number that Google assigns you for free. You can select your area code and choose between a bunch of available numbers. That is the best way to go because it offers the most in service, like call forwarding, screening, and recording.
But not everyone wants to start using a new phone number, so Google offers another option for people who are willing to trade some features for the ability to keep their existing number.You lose call screening and recording but you can have it work through your existing mobile phone number.
There’s also a new Google Voice mobile web app for the iPhone. For me, this may be the coolest tweak as it lets me access a streamlined version of my Google Voice inbox. The new web app also ldisplays my Google Voice number as the outbound caller ID (so return calls come back to my Google Voice number), send and receive text messages for free, and place international calls at Google Voice’s low international rates.
There’s also an app for the Palm Pre, Blackberry and Android-powered phones.
Sorry, I’ve used my invites up already. If you don’t get an invite from a friend, you can request one at google.com/voiceinvite.
