It’s been a loooooong time coming.
I’ve been waiting for years for Google to do something with GrandCentral, which was an awesome idea way ahead of its time when they bought it in 2007. Well, here it is 2009 and Google has FINALLY brought it out of “secret Beta” mode, renamed it as Google Voice and made it even more drool-worthy by adding features that make the service even more compelling. Having one phone number for people to call that will automagically ring all your phones, or any one of your phones based on criteria you chose like the time of day or the person who is calling, was always pure genius. But now the other cool features, like call screening, caller ID, call blocking, conference calling, etc. make the service so awesome I can’t believe none of the “big” phone companies offer anything like it. But I bet this will wake some of them up soon. I mean, Google even has free voicemail transcription services so that all your voice messages are transcribed and searchable via your phone or the web!
And did I mention that this is all free?
The only real problem now is, of course, Google Voice is still in Beta and unavailable to the general public. I hope I can get on it soon because I really, REALLY want to try it out. I’ve been beating my head against the wall for years now, wondering why in this modern time people can’t be reached via one phone number for all their contact needs. Voice, texting, whatever. If I want to call you why do I need 5 different numbers to try, home, office, cell, etc.? Does it really matter to me where you are when I call you? I mean, why can’t our phones route incoming calls to whatever phone we want to receive calls on? Well, soon enough, when Google Voice goes public, I’ll sign up and finally be able to give out a single phone number from which I will always be reachable. Unless I block you because I don’t want to talk to you. Because I don’t like you. Because you never actually talk. And you kinda creep me out with all that heavy breathing and fwap-fwap sounds.
Seriously, stop calling me. Freak.
Between call-forwarding and Blackberry, is this even needed? I’d think that a hub to manage what numbers and text goes where is built into such services already. The only added feature sounds like real-time Dragon Naturally speaking to get voice-to transcription features.
And we know how well that works :P
I saw an article on it today, and I’m with you. Bring it on already!