Welcome to Google Voice!
Today I won the lottery and received my long-awaited Google Voice invitation. Voice is Google’s new cloud-integrated telephone forwarding and consolidation service. You obtain a new phone number, then link all of your other phones to it. When someone calls your Google Voice number, all of your assigned phones ring.
One of Voice’s best features is that voicemail is transcribed. The transcription and audio file are sent to your Voice account where you can then review and manage them as you please.
Being Google, you have a fairly decent amount of customization that comes along with your Voice account. You can define which of your phones ring based on who’s calling, block less desirable callers, and record custom greetings for different callers or groups.
When you first sign up, you are asked to select your new phone number. Having been assigned all of my phone numbers in the past, this request was a pleasant surprise. Needless to say, I wanted to give it some thought. It appears that you can have your Voice number utilize any area code, despite your physical location. I opted for a local area code so callers can conclude my general geographical location. I then set out to find a number combination that was remotely memorable. No truly generic numbers are available, ala 585-6000, and I’m going with the assumption that these numbers will be reserved for business and services.
Once you pass the intensely challenging task of selecting your One Number To Rule Them All, you have to activate each phone that you’ve added to your account. You’ll be provided with a two-digit confirmation number and prompted to “call” your phones from your Voice account. An automated system then prompts you to enter the confirmation number. Then you’re good to go! I was also prompted to leave a generic greeting, but that can be changed at any time.
Voice was automatically configured to email me my messages once they have been received. Another awesome feature. To cover everything, Google provides this concise list of features:
| Call screening | Announce and screen callers |
| Listen in | Listen before taking a call |
| Block calls | Keep unwanted callers at bay |
| Short Message Service (SMS) | Send, receive, and store SMS |
| Place calls | Call US numbers for free |
| Taking calls | Answer on any of your phones |
| Phone routing | Phones ring based on who calls |
| Forwarding phones | Add phones and decide which ring |
| Voicemail transcripts | Read what your voicemail says |
| Listen to voicemail | Check online or from your phone |
| Notifications | Receive voicemails via email or SMS |
| Personalize greeting | Vary greetings by caller |
| Share voicemail | Forward or download voicemails |
| Conference calling | Join people into a single call |
| Call record | Record calls and store them online |
| Call switch | Switch phones during a call |
| Mobile site | View your inbox from your mobile |
| GOOG-411 | Check directory assistance |
| Manage groups | Set preferences by group |
So once you’re in, Voice looks a lot like Gmail. At the top of the left navigation I have a Call and a SMS button for initiating either. I then have my Inbox, Starred (for highlighting important voicemails), History, Spam, and Trash. My Contacts are my Gmail contacts. Then there’s a list containing Voicemail, SMS, Recorded, Placed, Received, and Missed. These look to be the equivalent of Labels in Gmail, which is nothing more than the ability to tag an entry and view it later when it has been Archived. Speaking of Labels, it’s surprising that the feature is absent from Voice, but I’m sure it will show up in one of the next few updates.
The last thing I noticed was a Balance, which by default was at $0.10. Your balance shows how much credit you have to make international calls from Google Voice. Calls made within the continental U.S. are free and don’t affect your balance. The 10 cents must be a welcome gift.
The Settings have an apparent inconsistency that no one at Google seemed to notice or care about. On the Voicemail Greeting setting you have a link to Play and another to Re-record. Directly beneath is the setting for Recorded Name, however “play” is now a button with an arrow and “re-record” has been changed to “Record New”. Record New did remain a link at least. This is just plain silly and makes Google look like they rushed this out the door (which they probably did.) All other settings seem fairly straight-forward and intuitive.
I conducted a test with a colleague, allowing Voice to take the message. The transcription was not exactly accurate, but it did do a good job capturing the phone number I left. That alone is an excellent feature, however I may be inclined to check the actual audio just to be sure.
The arrival of Google Voice is the most significant change to telephone communication since the introduction of the celluar phone. An unprecedented level of control and customization of your incoming calls, routing, message storage and organization. Hopefully in use it meets the high expectations I have for it.
Find out more at www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html
March 14th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
hey, appreciate it.