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