Google Voice - Now Publicly Available!

via google.com

I'm sure many of you out there have heard that Google Voice is now available to the public without requiring an invitation. That's so cool! If there is any Google product, aside from GMail, that I thought would revolutionize their business, it's Voice.

Yeah, well here is a REALLY quick rundown of what it does for those of you that don't have one yet:

Voicemail transcription (which means even Visual Voicemail is not cool anymore), one number to port to multiple phone lines like your office or your cell phone, international calling for a very small fee, free sms and voice calling in the US and Canada, SMS to email capabilities when people text to your Google Voice number, VM sharing - which can be done through email, blocked caller capabilities, screening callers, conference calls, and a cool little mobile app for your iPhone, Android powered phone, or Blackberry (yeah, they even have a Blackberry app). And with this app you have the capability of checking out your voicemails and texts all in one place, which is also in the cloud.

In any case, here is why I think it's so cool. Voice lets you make calls and accept calls on any phone, regardless of its actual number. This means if you have a new business and want to make your Google Voice the primary line, you can port it to your cell phone or office phone, hell make it both, and it will redirect to that phone when someone calls. Pretty cool huh? So you don't have to rely on the shady and unresponsive business of major wireless and phone providers like ATT (business or wireless), Comcast, Verizon, etc.

One thing though, that begins to concern me, is the inability for Google Voice to place calls as efficiently as your normal number. You obviously can't call directly from your Google Voice line if you dial a number into your phone. Instead, you must call into your Google Voice line, which will then prompt you with the OPTION to make a call. When you give them the number, they will make the call for your and redirect it to the number you have on the account. Confusing huh? Yeah, tell me about it.

On the bright side, if you have a smartphone with the Google Voice app, you can call directly from the app - albeit a little slow and more frequently than not drops altogether.

So, while Google Voice does a really good job of offering us a free way to communicate with each other and carry around our number, it still lacks in transmitting capabilities. Regardless all the flack you give companies like ATT and TMobile for the shitty service around major areas like NY and SF, they are still doing a great job and it will take time and a lot of research before they are able to support a following as large as major wireless network providers.

Thoughts? Do you use Google Voice and how do you use it? Do you think it's useful to someone with your needs?

Posted via web from boochikan's posterous

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Watch ST@B Dialogues with Ben Parr

I'm pretty excited to announce a new interview/speaker series that was set up in my last semester at Cal. This series, dubbed ST@B Dialogues, aims to address the interests, questions, and comments of students at Cal and people within the immediate entrepreneurial ecosystem by namely speakers.

To begin the series, I sat down with Ben Parr, Co-Editor at Mashable, and discussed some insights on the world of entrepreneurship trending topics in the social media world. We also discussed some major questions for students trying to find jobs or a niche in the field. My goal with ST@B Dialogues is to provide UC Berkeley students with insights into the world of entrepreneurship through regularly scheduled interviews with Bay Area entrepreneurs. We ask all our constituents to ask questions through major social networks, on our blog at startup.berkeley.edu, and through survey. We then select the best and most popular questions to be used in our interview. So keep watching our blog to either suggest new speakers or post questions for future speakers.

A little background about Mashable: Founded in July 2005, Mashable is the world's largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Media news. With more than 15 million monthly pageviews, Mashable is the most prolific blog reviewing new Web sites and services, publishing breaking news on what's new on the web and offering social media resources and guides.

And here is the footage via http://startup.berkeley.edu/dialogues/benparr/

ST@B Dialogues - Ben Parr from George Dy on Vimeo.

Here are the questions I asked:

1. What do you think of the LBS phenomenon and do you see it developing further?

2. Do you think privacy issues with Facebook will cause the popular social network to lose a majority of its users. Do you think QuitFacebookDay.com will generate a strong movement?

3. do you think Facebook's Open Graph poses a threat to Google and hyperlinks as a whole?

4. What do you think social media will look like in 10 years? Which entrepreneurs or organizations are making strides towards that concept?

5. What are some common mistakes that you see entrepreneurs and companies making right now?

6. If you could work on any project or any company, who or what would you work on?

7. How has your time at Mashable influenced your perspective on startups and entrepreneurship as a whole?

8. What would you recommend for an aspiring entrepreneur at Cal?

9. Do you have any advice for entrepreneurs waiting to take advantage of the upcoming video calling and advertising platform for the mobile phones market?

10. Do you think Apple poses a real threat to Google's mobile advertising platform?

11. How do you like the Apple iPad?

12. What companies would you expect to hire heavily from college grads?

13. What is one key idea that you would like to share with the audience through your experience over the years? Stay tuned to startup.berkeley.edu for more ST@B Dialogues.

 

Stay tuned to startup.berkeley.edu for more ST@B Dialogues.

 

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