I am a Google fan. Not so much because of the Search Engine, but because of their grasp on truly expanding services into the 'Cloud'. I hate when people use the term 'The Cloud', because most of the time they are using it incorrectly, but if you want to get into The Cloud look at what Google is doing in terms of applications and services.
This post I will focus on Google Voice and how I personally use it today. Google and Apple are on the right track that in the future, people will not have phone numbers. In the next 10 to 15 years we will look at phone numbers as we look at home land line telephones today, on the outs. I say Google and Apple because of their direction they are taking their way people communicate, Google over Apple, but they are both visionaries and going to help take this into a direction unthinkable 10 years ago.
Google Voice is a service that allows you to have your own telephone number and make calls, receive calls, text message, and voicemail.... FOR FREE. Free national calls, international calls are a few cents a minute. Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). Google Voice, after many years of fights and delays, came to the iPhone as an application. This was my first introduction to it. I have all the Google Apps, but I don't have a headset for my PC so never really worried about it.
Since it came to the iPhone I read up, got educated about it, and decided to grab a phone number. Google allowed you to be picky and grab a phone number to your preference. I got one that was very close to my cell phone number, as it was easier to remember. I still can't believe it's all free.
As I played around with it, I decided that using the Google number at this time, as my primary phone number is not something I am going to do. Few reasons, most people call my cell phone. Only close family has my home number and I never, EVER, blend my work cell phones with personal. I always get asked why I carry two cell phones and keep them separate. For 10 years my answer has been the same... I can throw my work phone in a drawer and shut off.
Yes, I know Google Voice rules and forwarding can help with that, but not if I switch companies, I can't shake a phone number if I have all my eggs in one basket.
But, Google Voice has a very important play in my life. I only have given my Google Voice number out to a very small number of people. The way Google Voice works, you can add your other phones lines to it. So I have my personal cell, work cell, and home phone tied to my number. That way in the case of an ultimate emergency, family call can that number and every phone I have tied to it will ring at the same time.
But the most recent setup I configured is the use of voice mail. How Google Voice works for voice mail is wonderful. If someone calls you and leaves a message on your Google number, Google will transcribe the voice mail into text and send you a text message and email of the voice mail. So you don't necessarily have to listen to it to get it. But since I don't want to use my Google number as my primary line, I took advantage of the features and re-routed my iPhone voice mail into Google Voice. So now when people call my iPhone number, the same number I have had for years, the voice mail is actually Google's. Leave a message and I get a text of what you said within a minute or two.
As time moves one I probably will put more features into Google Voice. In fact, they just recently announced that you can port your cell number over to Google's services. But there are some catches with that contractually with your carriers, but that can be explained in another post.
End of Line.
Twitter - @binaryblogger
contactme@binaryblogger.com
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Posted in: Google,Internet,iPhone,Technology
0 comments:
Post a Comment