For those of you who haven’t heard about Google Voice, hop on the bandwagon, now. If you received an invite, you are officially part of the luckier percentile; I am wondering how I ever lived without it. I signed up a month ago for an invite, and was lucky enough to get first choice pick from the numbers available.
It is an internet based phone forwarding service which assigns you a single phone number that rings all your phones. It gives you a separate phone number, which you pick from an extensive list of numbers. Before I signed up, I thought I was going to have a number automatically assigned to me, perhaps a number like 999-555-0000, so I was surprised when I was asked to enter in my area code, and it gave me a list of numbers that were somewhat similar.
After you choose your number, you can then change your settings to have calls forward to any of your phones (i.e. work, mobile, home).
Some awesome features to note:
Call Screening - announce and screen callers
Listen in - listen before taking a call
Block calls- keep unwanted callers at a minimum and mark them as SPAM
SMS - send, receive, and store SMS
Place calls - US calls are free
Taking calls - answer on any of your phones
Phone routing - phones ring based on who calls
Forwarding phones - add phones and decide which ring
Voicemail transcripts - read what your voicemail says
Listen to voicemail - check from the web or by phone
Notifications - receive voicemails via email or SMS
Personalize greeting - vary greetings by caller
Share voicemail - forward or download voicemails
Conference calling - join people into a single call
Call record - record calls and store them online
Call switch - switch phones during a call
Mobile site - view your inbox from your cell phone
GOOG-411 - Check directory assistance
Manage groups - Set preferences by group
It’s only limitation may be that is it only offered to users within the USA, but we will see how long that lasts!
It is available by invite only. Click here to get an invite.
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