Newest “Gotta-Have” from Google: Google Voice

Have you ever wished you could have a message on your phone that told that certain annoying person, “The number you have dialed is no longer in service”? Well now you can.

Enter: Google Voice, my new favorite from Google. So what is it? Google’s answer to voice mail and “follow-me”. It’s a phone number which forwards to your existing telephones; work, home and mobile…and so much more.

Choose you’re number from area codes anywhere in the country or locally. If you’re fortunate enough, you might be able to use a vanity number like (801) Call-Pam (225-5726). Record your name and a default greeting and you’re up and running.

Now comes the fun part. Import your contacts (done for you automatically, from your Gmail) and customize, customize, customize. Categorize your contacts into groups and give Google Voice specific instructions and greetings. Maybe you even want to record a special greeting just for that special someone or Mom, do it! You can set distinct instructions for any and all contacts. Yes, that really includes sending Aunt Gert straight to voice mail every time she calls or tell Billy Bob that you’re number is no longer in service. Along with customization, the fact that you can set specific schedules for forwarding to each phone and appoint “Do not Disturb” times is pretty cool.

I love how it transcribes the voice messages (albeit, not perfectly -some are good for a laugh, but you get the gist of the message) and sends both the transcription and the audio to my email. It will also send text message with the transcription.

With all of that, probably my favorite is that we use it as our “Home” phone number since we no longer have a land-line. It rings all of us at the same time and whoever answers first gets the call. If the person calling wanted another one of us, we just his star and the call is transferred to the other phone. It’s kind of like picking up the other extension with a land line…pretty cool!

If you like the idea of Google Voice, you’ll need to request an invite from www.google.com/voice. You could end up waiting several weeks so if you just can’t wait, ask your friends on Facebook if anybody has and extra. You can even find them for a couple of dollars on eBay. So go ahead, try it out, play with it, make it yours and have fun!