Well I've been testing out Google Voice (formerly Grand Central) for a while and I'm pretty impressed with the service. If you're not familiar with Google Voice it allows you to have one phone number that forwards to your other phones, so whether you're at home, work or on the go with your cell phone people can contact you with your Google Voice number. Also did I mention it's free? Yeah - it's Google, so it's free 
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Some neat features are transcriptions of Voicemail - definitely not perfect but if you're in a situation where you can't answer a call and receive a voicemail (library, computer lab, business meeting) but happen to be at a computer then you can read the voicemail. Just a warning though, if the person can't pronouce words clearly then it'll definitely be off from the recording 
. You can also have the service use your phone to connect you to anyone in the nation for free, or send and receive free SMS messages from your Google Voice number. If you have an unknown number or that one person you always ignore who calls to talk about meaningless stuff you can listen in on voicemails as they're being recorded in real-time. You can transfer a call between phones, so if you're at home and have to leave then there's the option to easily transfer the call to your cell phone. There are a lot more features but those are the notable ones for myself.
Personally I only have a cell phone, but I'll start using my Google Voice number as a business number to sort out phone calls for my DJ business. I'll know later down the road if this proves to be effecient or merely one more thing to worry about checking everyday.
Google Voice is currently invite-only but you can sign up for an invite at Google.com/voice. Once you get an invitation and accept it, all you have to do is sign in to your Google account and then go to that same url to access your account.
For smartphone users there are mobile apps for it which will extend the functionality of your device, however iPhone users you're out of luck, the official app from Google was rejected by Apple.
To close with, my Google Voice number is: (541) 357-9098
Posted at: 06:19 PM | Add Comment
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