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Q: Google Voice - What Is It, Exactly? A: Awesome

Posted by Daniel Shain

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Google Voice is a phone service provided by Google that is getting a lot of press lately. Accordingly, I had to satisfy my tech itch and check it out myself. And what I found is that it may just revolutionize the way we use our phones.

The basic premise of Google Voice is pretty simple. Register a number (anything you want - but we have dibs on 978-AWE-SOME), and then use the internet to manage everything about it that you either couldn't manage before, or had to use a clunky touch-tone system to manage. But you're not sure what needs managing?

How about call routing? One of the main features of Grand Central, the company which Google bought out in 2007 and has based their Google Voice technology on, was the ability to ring any or all of your phones when someone calls your internet number. The most superficial use for this is that someone can call your work and home phone numbers simultaneously so they won't miss you, but it gets far better. Grand Central also acted as your personal switchboard, meaning you could redirect certain numbers to ring certain phones (or just get the phone equivalent of a 404 page) and even listen in on voicemails left on one phone from another live as it's being left.

Here's a small sampling of what else Google Voice promises to do:

Call Recognition

Phone routing is cool, but I only have one phone and am still extremely excited about what Google Voice can do for me. Features under a term I'm calling Call Recognition is a big reason why. Essentially, Google Voice gives me ultimate control over who is calling me and what they get because they recognize who is calling. If it's a number I have set in my contacts, I can have it ring a specific phone (assuming I had more than one). If it's a number I have set to blocked, the caller will get an "I'm sorry, this number is no longer in service" message. If it's a number I don't have anywhere, I can adjust the settings so that Google will ask the caller to leave their name, kind of like a collect call. Google will then call me and say "You have a call from [audio recording]" and allow me to accept it, send it to voicemail, whatever I want. Google Voice also allows me to create personalized messages based on who is calling, so my friend Joe can hear a different VM than my boss Mr. Stevens.

Online Management

Probably the next coolest thing that Google Voice allows you to do is manage your phone via the internet. Voicemails left on your Google number are recorded and can be saved online, and you can even have transcripts sent to you via Email or SMS. In the Email you can send the audio file as an attachment too, eliminating the fear of automated transcription errors. SMSs can also be sent and stored online, and recorded voicemails can be forwarded to other people's phones so they can hear the exact same thing you did without you having to physically place your phone on their ear. Even segments of calls can be recorded and stored online, so you don't need to run and find pen and paper to remember that number or address. Judging by the videos, the layout of the online interface is very much like Gmail and thus should be familiar to many and pretty easy to pickup for everyone else.

Misc Features

Google Voice also gives you some other interesting features, like the ability to place calls to anywhere in the US for free (it uses no minutes - think Skype) and an easy way to arrange conference calling (available on many cell phones today but not always easy). You can check out the full list of features on Google's official page.

As I was learning about this service, I had to stop myself from signing up for an invite in the middle of reading about it. Unfortunately for right now the service is limited to those who have been invited or were grandfathered in from Grand Central, and it's hard to guess when the service will go public. Sign up for an invite and you will get a message telling you they expect the full service to be up and running within a few weeks, but by all accounts it has said that exact message since March when it first launched. Who knows when the service will be ready for [free] public consumption - but when it is, I'll be there, and you should be too.

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