Let Your Google Voice Be Heard

Google Voice, the latest competitor in the "everything in one place" mobile communications services, entered public beta today. Available to only GrandCentral users (the original web-based communications platform Google recently acquired) for now, the new service from the colossal online company is expected to be ready to go in a few weeks. What can you expect with Google Voice?



We expect Google Voice will do pretty well with its universal number, visual voicemail and kind of cool voice features. But it will easily take the cake with the price. Google will be offering the service for free, so even though we thought Rocketvox was pretty cool at CTIA, it's going to have a tough time competing against Google. However, just the fact that it's Google and they usually can have their way with whatever market they enter, Rocketvox probably would have had a hard time anyway.
Some of our personal favorites, only because we're slightly antisocial, were the call screening and the listen-in features. Sometimes we sure miss the olden days with the physical answering machines where you could listen to the message and pick it up halfway through if you wanted. With voicemail that concept was a thing of the past. But Google says no more. You can listen in on a voicemail as it is being recorded to decide if you want to listen.

Another feature we liked was the option to record calls and store them online ... for when you want to replay those conversations ... again and again. Check out some of the other noteworthy features:

• Phone routing - depending on who is calling, you decide which phone it goes to


• Call switch - switch phones during a call


• Personalize Greeting - vary greetings by caller (no more fear your boss is going to hear your somewhat unprofessional answering machine)

There's more, but you can look at them yourself.

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