I’m going to geek out a little bit here. If you’re not interested, I suggest you walk away now. Turn off your computer. Go outside. Read a book.
Go on. I’ll still be here when you get back.
Today I got an invitation to join Google Voice. It’s terribly exciting, and still quasi-exclusive (you have to be invited to join). It’s not entirely useful to me just yet, but it’s terribly exciting.
So what’s Google Voice? Basically it’s a new(-ish) free service offered by Google where they act as middle men between you and your phone. Well, really your phone company or companies if you carry multiple cell phones and/or landlines.
Rather than give out phone numbers for your landline or your cell phone, you give people your Google Voice phone number. It’s a real phone number, with the proper area code for your locality (I got one for Janesville!). When people dial it, Google forwards the call onto one or more physical phone devices. You can ring your cell phone and/or your land line on each call. You can set it up to forward phone calls from one person or group of people to one real phone number and calls from a different group to another. You can set up call screening. You can listen in as people leave voicemail and interrupt them if you choose. It’s got visual voicemail. It’s got text transcription. It’s got the ability to start phone calls by dialing you (useful in long-distance situations). And so on and so on.
All for the low low price of trusting Google with yet more informationa bout you.
Honestly that doesn’t really bother me all that much. I’m an enthusiastic consumer of Google’s goods and services. I’ve kept my gmail address for longer than any other email address I’ve had, including the ones from my extended college experience. I like their documents and their readers and…well…almost everything of theirs I’ve used.
Now, the only thing that’s bad about this whole situation is that it’s only semi-useful to me. I don’t actually have a landline at this point. I’ve got a cell phone dedicated to our home phone number. We did that as a cost-saving measure last year. It’s been ok, so far. Not as great as I had hoped it would be. But honestly, if I decided that I want to change my mind by the time the contract ends on the home phone number, I could always start giving out my google voice phone number to people. That way if I decide to bundle landline service back into my communication packages, no one would have to memorize a new phone number. I could just set Google to forward all calls to a new landline.
Or I could just tell people that the Google number is the home phone number.
It’s all up in the air now.
And I feel special because of it.
