I recently got my invitation to try out Google's new Voice service. Once again, the price is free and you can get your own invitation here. Setting up yet another dependency on a free beta product from Google concerns me but not enough to keep me from trying it out.
Getting setup is pretty simple. You can pick a phone number for yourself ($10 fee to change it later, so don't screw up!). I did a search for the last four digits of my current mobile number and got a number that was very similar--don't know why this was important to me, but it was. Once I picked my number, I was able to add the phones I wanted to associate with that number. I have only one phone for everything, so that part wasn't terrible exciting.
The Highs
- Easy to setup
- Seems like plenty of numbers to chose from
- Numbers will be portable (an initial concern of mine)
- Price is right. I might even pay a bit for some premium feature down the line.
- Love the SMS feature. Allows text messaging online even if you can't access your phone!
- Familiar GMail-style layout
- Able to create custom greetings just for the Google voice number (top feature for me)
- Nice privacy features
- Voicemail to email and call notifications
The Lows
- Limited to one number per GMail account (maybe a nice premium feature for the future)
- Didn't see any 800 number options (another nice premium feature for the future)
- No direct tie-in to GMail
- Had mixed results with the voice transcriber
- No real app for Windows Mobile yet
- Further pwnership by Google
Why this service works for me?
I have a consulting side to me that I like to keep somewhat separated from my personal side. As previously mentioned, I use one phone for everything and don't want that to change. Google voice gives me a separate number that I can use to identify and triage calls coming to my phone. My voicemail greetings make sense depending on the number people use to contact me, and I can answer the phone in a manner that also makes sense for the context of the caller.
I'm sure there will be many creative uses for this service and I am interested in hearing any you might come up with.
Tuesday, 28 July 2009 05:47