Nearly two years after acquiring GrandCentral, Google is preparing to relaunch the service with lots of new features. GrandCentral has been in private beta for the last two years and over the next few days Google will be prompting existing beta users to upgrade to Google Voice before rolling out the service to new users in a few weeks.
GrandCentral was a Web-activated IP voice service that uses a single "public" number that points to other numbers and devices, providing a range of visual voice mail and Web message retrieval and call management features.
Google Voice will add the ability to make free calls to U.S. telephone numbers and cheap calls to other numbers, make conference calls, and send, receive, store, and search SMS messages and create transcripts of voice mails.
From my perspective, one of the best new features is the ability to deliver the Google Voice number, even when placing a call from some other real device. The reason for that is that Google Voice features are applied to inbound calls using the virtual number.
If anybody calls using the actual device's "delivered" number (caller ID), the features aren't available. So it now will be easier to deliver the Google Voice caller ID on outbound calls, which virtually assures that return calls will arrive in a way that allows call management features to work.
Also, voice mail now will more nearly resemble email, and users can create transcripts of calls, a useful feature for many call settings.
Hopefully, Google will make address book importation easier as well. That, and the inability to simply deliver the GrandCentral virtual phone number, have been my two biggest problems using the service.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Google Voice to Launch Within Days
Gary Kim has been a digital infra analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology, pre- and post-internet. He sees a similar evolution coming with AI. General-purpose technologies do not come along very often, but when they do, they change life, economies and industries.
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2 comments:
Google Voice is exciting, but the one drawback that would keep me from using it would be the inability of my Google number to be shown on the recipients caller ID when making a call directly from my "real" phone.
Are you saying that this isn't the case though? If so, this service would be perfect.
Well, I haven't gotten my upgrade yet, so I am not completely sure. What I understand is that the Google Voice number will be delivered to recipients as long as the call is initiated using Google Voice.
In other words, from your Google Voice portal, click on the number you want to call and make the call. It's sort of like how you can dial "out" through a business phone system from a remote location, to take advantage of the lower company rates, the phone system features, or to "make it look like" you are in the office.
Personally, like you, I'd like a default setting that eliminates having to "dial around" in this way, but as long as we are calling telephone numbers, I'm not sure you can get around this.
But I think what will be possible is a "call GrandCentral," then dial your number, sort of like an 800 number experience. Then you can deliver the Google Voice number. It isn't as simple as "just calling," but much better than what has been possible.
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