Google Voice Review
Monday, July 6, 2009 at 6:13PM I received an invite for Google Voice a couple of weeks ago. I had a Grand Central account years ago, (but like many) I completely left it neglected, and did not upgrade after Google's purchase of Grand Central.
I was a little wary of what may have been changed. You basically log in, and choose your new phone number to connect to it. I can't remember is whether Grand Central had to have a physical phone tied to it, but with Google Voice, you do need a physical phone to tie to your account.
Once all was set up, I used the phone tied to the account to call the new number. It sent my directly into the voice mail system. I was then asked to set up my inbox. Being as I only have one phone, I called my mom to have her check the system.
One of the nifty parts of Google Voice is that it (attempts to) transcribe your voicemail into an email, which it then sends you. I will preface this by stating that my mother doesn't have any heavy accents or speech impediments. This is what she actually said in the voice mail:
"Hey, Ray, this is Mom. I'm leaving this text. Call me tomorrow. Love you. Bye"
Now, what Google's transcription engine (or small children in India) transcribed:
"hey ryan this is mom so yeah i'm leaving intact and call me tomorrow love you bye"
OK, it's not that far off, but I still had to listen to the voice message to get the context of the "intact" statement. Over all I am quite happy and surprised by all of the function of the service. I guess my favorite is the ability to SMS directly from the GMAIL-esque interface.
Raymond Mendoza
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Reader Comments (2)
Somehow I have only 1 phone (gizmo SMS phone) selected on my GV account. I used to have Grandcentral. So I just followed some directions and setup a Gizmo account and then told GV that it was my phone. But the odd thing is I can't change that phone in GV anymore, not even the name. It won't stick, and I get that message "one physical phone" blink. Oh well. I don't want to link my physical phone ... in GC you didn't have to and that's why I used it. I used GC for voicmail and free phone number. I will do same with GV, and SIP now! I use Virgin Moble and there is not big advantage to link that as every minute of every call costs me regardless.
Thanks for your comment, Little Brother! The big selling point for going back to Google Voice was the free phone number and voicemail. Being that I have started a new podcast, I needed a number to tie to it. This is the perfect use for my Google Voice account. In it, I can receive calls, forward them to a "real" phone, and with the spam and groups features, I can direct the calls in different ways. I think this will work out well for what I am using it for.