Google recently released their newest online service, Google Voice. This new phenomenon is available by invitation only.
I received my invitation a few days ago and I’m still amazed with it.
Google tries something different when it comes to using a phone number. Instead of having a number assigned to a phone, Google assigns you a number, which like an email address, is attached to a person and not a phone or device.
A person can then have the calls from forwarded to another phone number, which includes a mobile, home, or a business number.
When someone calls your Google number, you can have all the phones ring together. One can even have phones ring for designated people.
Google Voice has many impressive features.
It leads me to wondering how anybody ever lived without it.
I’ll start with all that you can do with the voicemail feature. On a regular phone, your callers leave a voicemail when you cannot be reached and you check it later when you have more time.
With Google Voice, when the caller is forwarded to voicemail, you can listen in on the person leaving the voicemail and even join in and make it a conversation.
Also, your voicemail can be transcribed and sent to your email for you to read what your caller left in your voicemail.
We’ve come to the point where we can’t live without texting.
A person can text through their phone or the computer. On the computer, it is almost like an instant messenger and allows you to speed up your conversations.
One feature I found to be really cool is the conversation recording feature.
One can record all or part of your conversation by pressing a button and Google automatically saves the recorded clip as a MP3 file and sends it to a Google Voice account so it can listened to later.
A great example of a scenario where that can be useful is if you are driving and someone wants to tell you a number that you will need to remember for later.
Simply record the call while the person is giving you the number and it will be in your inbox, so a person does not have to shuffle for pen and paper while driving. A person can also switch phones within a conversation, almost like a house phone. While in a conversation with somebody on a cell phone, it’s capable to switch from the house phone without ending the phone call.
The best thing that Google does with this is that everything is free.
From getting the local number to making use of all the features listed above, it’s all free! The hardest thing is to get an invitation from Google.
I sent my request for invitation earlier this summer and just received it three days ago. Nearly three months of waiting was hard, but well worth it.
Google Voice is supported on all phones and actually has a downloadable application for Blackberry and Android phones.
Apple has rejected the use of Google Voice on their phones recently, which did bring a lot of attention from the Federal Communications Commission.Apple’s reason to deny their customers the Google Voice experience was due to the fact that the the iPhone is already capable of doing all that Google Voice is trying to have it do.
Their customers are angry because they are missing out on a money saver and also a great experience.
Because of this, many devout Apple users have parted from their iPhones and switched to a more “free” experience.
The list of Apple abandonees includes tech show hosts Cali Lewis from geekbrief.tv and Molly Wood from CNET’s, “The Buzz Report.”
To find out more information and request an invitation, go to http://www.voice.google.com.