Google Voice: Review

Well, it finally came... my Google Voice invitation. I decided to check it all out. The interface looks like Gmail, so it should be familiar to many people.

The first step was picking my phone number, and it posed an interesting question... what's more important? An area code you like or your phone number spelling something? I decided that since I tend to move a lot and am not in one area code for long, I would pick a phone number that spelled something nobody can forget. :) The upside? You will probably never forget my number. The down side? I show up on caller ID as calling from Canton, Ohio. OH well.

The next step I took was importing my Outlook contacts. It remembered my categories, and used those as Groups. You can make settings for groups. For example, a group can get a special voicemail outgoing message. And a group can be routed to some of your phone numbers. Or a group can go straight to voicemail. So this means I can have one outgoing message for friends, one for certain business associates, etc...

And my most important peeps can be sent to ring my office and cell phone AT THE SAME TIME... or regular peeps can just ring the office, and I don't have to take it on my cell phone. You can also set temporary numbers (like your mountain cabin, as the help file says) in case you want calls to find you there.

Not sure if you want to take a call from someone? When they call your number, Google Voice calls you, and announces who they are. You then have a pile of choices... take the call, send it to voicemail, send it to voicemail but listen in on the voicemail (and hit a button to interrupt and start talking to the person leaving a voicemail), or record the call.

Yes. Record the call. I think it said it will announce something saying it's recording. I haven't tried that.

Want your calls to look like they come from your number? Two ways to do that. One is to dial your own number (say from your mobile), and then instruct the system to call out. The other is to be on the Google Voice website, and initiate the call from there. You say who to call or what number, and what phone you want to use. It'll call you first, and once you connect, it calls your intended party with your Google Voice number showing up on caller ID.

If you initiate calls from Google Voice, you might get charged. Right now, calls from the US to the 48 continental states are free. Calls to landlines in other countries are pretty comparable to rates I've seen from other services... $0.02/min to the UK, $0.03/min to Australia, $0.01/min to Canada. Calls to mobile phones are always more. But hey, if I'm out on my mobile phone somewhere, it'll cost me less to call through Google Voice than to pay Sprint's fees to make international calls. Google Voice gives you 10 cents free to play around (well, I got 10 cents!).

Text messaging was very cool. Google Voice understands which of my phones is my mobile phone. If you text my Google Voice number, it comes to me as coming from Google Voice. If I reply, it goes through Google Voice back to you. That means that if I go to the SMS dashboard on the Google Voice website, I will see our texts as a threaded conversation. I can send SMS or reply to them right there. That was pretty neat. My cell phone number never showed up in any of it.

Some features I haven't tried out.

• If you have received a call on one phone, and you want to switch to another phone, you can evidently hit *. Your other phones will ring, and you can pick up the call where you want. Sounds neat!
• It evidently transcribes voicemails... didn't try that yet. They will be in your Google Voice inbox, and you can have them emailed to you. I love that from Vonage, so I'm sure I'd like that here.
• It's integrated with GOOG411 when you call into your own number.
• One of the types of phone numbers you can put in is Gizmo, which seems to be a Skype competitor. Sure, you can put in a Skype number, and just label that as work or home.

I've had it a few hours and have given nobody the number. :) So I'm not totally testing it. I'm afraid of giving out a phone number I'm not sure if I'll really keep and use. But I do like the idea of a business card with ONE phone number on it... call me, and I'll get it in the office, mobile, somewhere else, or on voicemail. And it could be my phone number for LIFE. That is attractive.

I'd love to keep testing this, but am afraid to give out my number! I'll have to give another review once I'm using this more. :)

Posted at 05:00 AM in That's Good Marketing | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)