Google Voice: what all the talk’s about
By Andrew Heining | 03.12.09
Can you hear call, text, reach-me-anywhere now?
Google this morning announced an overhaul for GrandCentral, the “one number to rule them all” telephone service it acquired in 2007.
Now called Google Voice, the service forwards calls to multiple phones, screens calls, transcribes voicemails, manages and routes text messages, offers free US and cheap international calls, and offers customizable call handling, greetings, and availability options.
The old-fashioned three-tone “this nunber has been disconnected” message is even at your fingertips for those really annoying callers.
And, since it’s from Google, the whole thing’s free.
The service is limited to Grand Central users for now (a group grandfathered in from when Google paid $50 million for the service two years ago) but will be made public in the coming weeks.
Here’s a look at what’s being said about the new Google Voice offerings:
Voicemail transcription
“This is huge. It means that you can search, sort, save, forward, copy and paste voice mail messages…. Companies like PhoneTag, Callwave and Spinvox already transcribe voice mail, complete with punctuation. They’re great, but they cost money. Google Voice is free.” [David Pogue for the New York Times]
“The key feature of Google Voice is that it recognizes the words in a voicemail message left for you, and can then email the transcript to your inbox or deliver it to your phone via SMS–kind of like having a digital personal assistant managing your calls for you.” [Kit Eaton for Fast Company]
Just one number
“You don’t have to worry about which number to hand out to people, and if you’re sitting with your cell phone next to you home or work phone, you can choose which to answer. If you have the “screen calls” option enabled, Google Voice will ask you if you want to accept the call or send the person to voice mail….
“In practice, virtualizing your profusion of real-world phone numbers with one that redirects is handy. You can set various preferences – for example, calls from your family members get a custom answering message; calls from your parents don’t ring your work number; and calls from your spouse are answered directly when you pick up the phone rather than run through the Google Voice options such as answering the call, sending it to voice mail, or listening in on the voice mail.” [Stephen Shankland for CNET]
Skype killer?
“Analysts are divided on how much of an impact Google Voice will have on the domestic and international calling business, though some believe that of all of the features, it’s the ability to offer free internet calls that could be the game changer.” [Dianne See Morrison for MoCoNews via the Washington Post]
“Google has a huge pool of existing users and a history of rolling out applications that are more stable and feature-rich than Skype. eBay will need to make some serious investments in developing Skype’s functionality to compete with the Google juggernaut — or face selling the service for pennies on the dollar.” [Cyndy Aleo-Carreira for The Industry Standard]
Privacy? What privacy?
“The service will give Google enormous amounts of information about the intimate details of your everyday life, including recordings of your voice mail and possibly your phone calls. Combined with what Google already knows about you, it could mean your privacy is at an end.” [Preston Gralla for Computerworld]
The last word
“Google Voice looks like a clear winner to us. It takes the best features of GrandCentral and adds a number of important and interesting new features like SMS messaging and voicemail transcriptions. Clearly this is one of the most important products that Google has released in the last couple of months….” [Frederic Lardinois for ReadWriteWeb]
“Still, users have to get over a big initial hurdle - getting all their friends to start using a new phone number instead of the old ones. Business cards are to be thrown out, new ones printed. Contact cards updated. Etc. There’s nothing Google can do to fix this problem.” [Leen Rao for TechCrunch]
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2. Googlefear | 03.12.09
Yup, I agree with the above. Overreach will burn Google as surely as it has Microsoft.
While I am still a Google fan - Google Apps / Gmail / Earth galore - I am slowly moving away, and reviewing options. I recently got rid of my Adsense, Adwords and AdsManager business accounts for other more nimble offerings.
Just as I gave the heave-ho to M-Office for OpenOffice, I will lose no sleep leaving behind the G-men too.
3. Teresa Greaves | 03.12.09
Numerous services like this already exist with much more of a robust feature set.
Service likes RingCentral, GotVmail, OneBox, VirtualPBX etc.
They all offer this and 1000 times more.
Granted they are paid but they also offer 800 numbers where Google doesn’t.
All depends on if you view the service for personal use or business.
If for business I’d definitely go for one of the others…for $10 vs. free you get much more.
My 2 cents.
4. Owen | 03.12.09
Agreed. Although I can see many times when transcription would be a good thing too - maybe you can choose on a per call basis?
But more importantly I am really surprised that this is all Google has added in two years. In those two years, Skype added everything that GrandCentral previously had except the rules based call switching - and a lot more. And the only truly new part - the transcription is a bit gimmicky since I can already do it anywhere else (including Skype) if I pay - and that way I get some guaranteed privacy.
5. Mac | 03.12.09
I’m guessing you guys have never used the Grandcentral service.
It seems what you guys are afraid of is that Google will sell your personal interests to someone who’ll then try to sell a product to you. The fact of that matter is that there is no better way than Grancentral (Now Google Voice), to block spam calls, send unknown callers straight to voicemail, stop any annoying callers. This has been my experience with Grandcentral over the last year.
6. PMC | 03.12.09
I agree, what google will do is use it as an advertisement base. Words like hotel, beer, holiday etc will all trigger adverts on your and the callers account. Its there with gmail and others. They in turn will sell this to other organizations both private and government - soft information they call it.
7. Ben Ali | 03.12.09
Like most “free” services, Google’s actually has a price… the price of your privacy. What is not known yet is how high this price will be, that is, exactly how Google will attempt to leverage your previously-personal information to its monetary advantage.
9. Craig | 03.13.09
I’m looking forward to using Google Voice. I hate talking on the phone and I hate voicemail. I want to be able to read my voicemail the same as reading email.
As for those too paranoid to use the system — don’t. Me, I figure the more information a system has, the less it can do with it. I could care less what Google knows about me.
10. Tric | 03.13.09
I also find that reading voice mail saves time. I can read and answer in a fraction of the time it takes to answer a cal and get off the phone with the caller. Agreed some calls warrant a personal touch, but for the most part business communication will be facilitated by a service for callers that do not have internet. We also have to realize that Google has perpetual BETA allowing users to participate in early stages of release. This is cutting edge. This is where complaint comes in, but I say be thankful users can be part of a growing industry. Let them know the issues and they will continue to refine the product.
11. David | 03.13.09
Me, I hate advertising. Which is why I want Google to know as much about me as it can. I’d much rather see ads that are of relevance than ones which are not. Why? Because then I can see far fewer of them.
Up till recently, advertisers had to pay a certain amount to broadcast their adverts to millions in the hope that a few will end up buying their product. If they can get the same few buying their product by only sending those ads to hundreds, then they can afford to spend the same amount of money for the same number of sales but the viewers only get to see one thousandth of the number advertisements as before.
This can only happen if Google is able to target advertisements and it can only do that if it knows what you might be interested in. That’s why its current search model works so well (the words you use to search give a pretty good idea of what you might like) and I’m all for anything that improves this further.
Of course, I’m not running drugs or into kiddy porn so I’m not that concerned about what Google’s software might conclude about me from the voice calls I get (or the web sites I search) but maybe that’s just me.
12. Dr. Maat | 03.14.09
Seems as if the only privacy on can truly have is within the secret confines of his or her mind where surveillance devices, psychics and mediums cannot pick them up.
Meanwhile, we lost privacy when our births were registered even before party phone lines, cellphones, the Internet, social security numbers, cordless phones, miniature cameras, and 1000 feet listening devices.
I still have a listed home number so my friends and those who need to reach me can find me.
I am not in hiding and when I want privacy, I go into meditation, or into the zone while on my sunporch or at the lakefront, or enjoy a relaxing day at Spacio’s. When I can’t go to Spacio’s, I imagine myself there.
Technology is definitely not for those who fear its use.
Since we don’t use telepathy widely, I prefer to rely on technology. For those who like me have mobility limitaton in limbs, technology has enabled us in a society that tends to shun those who have visible disabilities or deficits.
I agree with those who don’t want Google to have their data and I agree with those who relish new technology. You are both right.
We are individuals and we each have different missions, needs and purposes in life, so let’s make the best of it.
13. Art Rosenberg | 03.14.09
The new capabilities highlighted by the Google Voice offering focuses on person-to-person voice contacts from a recipient’s perspective, not necessarily the caller (contact initiator) perspective. That leaves more needs to be taken care of to make voice conversations and message management more time efficient and productive for end users who, by definition, are both contact initiators and contact recipients/respondents.
That is where “unified communications” (UC) and federated presence/availability management, coupled with next-generation multimodal “smart phone” devices, will come into play, because a “blind” telephone call connection won’t even be attempted by a caller, if they know it won’t be answered. Instead, messaging alternatives can be selectively initiated by text or voice, depending upon the sender’s needs or preferences (driving, in a meeting or noisy environment etc.). Message senders may want to leave a message by voice because it is easier and faster, while message recipients will prefer to retrieve messages by text because it is faster to review and navigate and saves them the effort of selectively transcribing notes.
The bottom line is that contact initiators should be able to make contact attempts more easily, flexibly, and independently of the recipient’s situation or preferences, unless it really has to be a real-time conversation. In that case, recipient screening methods can be exploited (e.g., use instant messaging to switch to a voice connection) or simply schedule an appointment if necessary!
15. Avazed | 03.20.09
The main problem with Google Voice is how to get all your friends and business contacts to start using your google number instead of your normal one!
I think Avakit can solve this though!! It helped me a lot when I changed jobs… otherwise it would have been a nightmare to sit and think of every person in the world who I need to send my new contacts to! Now I just need to add my google number… Highly recommend it
16. bstring | 03.22.09
The fears expressed here about losing privacy seem to be fears of technology as noted previously and also fear of what ‘the big company’ might do with so much personal data. Can they really be trusted? Telcos and Wireless carriers have had access to our conversations and voice mails for many years, but for a lack of innovation were not able provide any truly compelling features/services. Finally, Google comes along and offers to do something useful and innovative and people have a hard time getting their mind around it. Imagine what the next 100 years will bring. We’re just getting started.
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1. Mark S | 03.12.09
I am sorry, but I do not need Google recording my voice calls and mining it for data, or whatever they are going to do with it. Their TOS is so full of things that when you use their service, the data belongs to them. Would that mean my voice is now owned bu Google? Sorry, but that is one other Google service I am going to steer clear of. I already steer clear of their Google Apps and hardly ever use the GMail service.