just an asterisk

I’ll admit, I was a skeptic.  In a previous post, I wrote about how hard it was to find anything to do with Google Voice.  At the time, ,the service provided much the same fare as the acquired predecessor:  Google would give you a number, when people call that number, they can be directed to any number of phones (they all ring at the same time).  Although I liked the idea, a good party trick for sure, I didn’t like the idea of changing my number and I just couldn’t work out how I was going to use the service without making disrupting communications… (like emailing a ton of people with a new number).

However, times change, products improve and blog writers recant.  Google recently introduced the ability to use Google voice for your primary phone – without migrating your number.  Now that this is the case, I can describe to you exactly what I do with Google Voice… and it’s awesome.

 

Here is the scenario:  I’m in Turkey, my cell phone works, but checking messages costs me $1.99 per minute.  In fact, I pay while the phone rings and while people leave messages, driving my phone bill through the roof (that 1.99 per minute continues…).  This is not uncommon – most phones work these days when you travel internationally, but the rates are still obscene.

Enter Google Voice with their new feature – GV now allows you to forward your current cell phone’s voicemail to Google.  This means that when you get a call, people receive a custom message from you (or the standard if you choose), but the service is handled by Google instead of your carrier.

Cool Point 1:  When I get a call on my cell, the Google voicemail kicks in  and then rings my other phones on my account!  So if I have my cell phone turned off (because the battery died), automatically calls could be redirected to my home phone.  This is snazzy, but doesn’t really help me with the Turkey Situation above.

Cool Point 2:  When the caller can’t find me, because I’m in Turkey and I’m ignoring their calls, they can leave a message.  Here is where it gets pretty amazing.  The resulting voicemail is transcribed (!) and sent to my email and as a text message to my phone.  I get the text message immediately (almost) and can figure out how I want to respond, knowing what the person ACTUALLY SAID.

Amazing eh?

There are things that I’d change about the service, it’s not perfect.  I’d love to see a way to give the caller a menu of options (go straight to voicemail, send a standard message like a page, or simply would you like us to try to find ab?).  There are custom voicemail greetings that you can set, but to be honest, I need  a way to switch between them quickly, perhaps even with a text message.  Logging into the service is cool, but what if I could use an app from my blackberry?  The product is in it’s infancy – but it’s still very, very cool.

Now for the bad news…  Google voice is not open to everyone yet.  It’s currently in very limited beta.  I would be happy to provide an invite to the best comment below (but only 1 this time).  Let me know what you think, or if you can think of better uses for this service.

~ab

This entry was posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 5:36 am and is filed under Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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