Remember about a year or two back, Google bought a small online telephone company called GrandCentral… Google Voice is the matured version of it, and stress-tested for large scale usage (hopefully).
Google Voice is an interesting service, very much in the territory of Telecom domain, so we will have to see how it impacts/ complements/ competes with the Telecoms of today.
Just FYI, Telecoms like AT&T, Verizon, Orange, etc are among the largest online advertisers, because they have a lot of money at stake in the face of VOIP, etc, and they are taking anything lightly today, though in the long-run, solutions with better economics will prevail, like we have seen with other technologies in the previous decades.
How does Google Voice work? You get a new Google assigned phone number. Then, you route all of your other phone numbers through that number. So, your office phone, your work phone, your home phone – whatever. Google voice will allow your calls to selectively ring to any of the destination phones you choose. It is a practical and useful concept, which is will be liked by many.
In addition, Google Voice offers bonus features like:
- You can selectively ring calls to multiple destinations.
- You can selectively block and screen calls
- You can send, receive forward and store SMS text messages
- Check your voicemail online, read it via email or text (you can even forward it)
- You can create personalized voicemail messages per contact
- You can group your contacts and manage their preferences on a group level
- Conference calling, call recording, call switching, 411 info
We came across a “double your sales, guarantee” today through an email newsletter and the presentation vs details of their offer demanded this quick post to show you why its really necessary to read the terms for any offer, especially when the offer comes with an attractive wording of guarantee.
