Google Voice Is Nothing Short of Incredible

I like to consider myself fairly savvy as far as gadgets and technology is concerned.  It takes a lot to impress me and I rarely find something that makes me say “Wow!”

Google Voice did just that.  I’m sure everyone has heard by now that Grand Central was purchased by Google.  Recently Google decided to transfer/upgrade Grand Central accounts to Google Voice, another one of those Google services that is still in Beta mode and not quite available to the masses.

Let me give you a quick run down.  Google Voice lets you have a telephone number.  They call it a “number for life.”  So you give that number out to people rather than your actual phone numbers.  You can login to your Voice account and change a bunch of settings, such as where phone calls to that number go, whether or not they go to a screening service first, maybe some callers are on a safe list and go straight through.  I have had this set up for a couple of years now and it comes in handy.  All of my whois info for my domain names have that number.  I give it to pretty much everyone.  It all used to be at Grand Central before.  So when someone calls that number, based on my settings, they are either directed to a screening which asks them to say their name or they go straight go my phone.  If they are screened first, I get a call asking if I want to talk to this person, send them straight to voicemail (and I can listen in on the voicemail, and have the option to answer during the voicemail) or ignore the call.

All of these options were available before Google even acquired Grand Central.  Google being Google has taken things a step further.  They have integrated this service with my Google account and now I have my contacts from my email address mixed with my Google Voice account. And I don’t have to login to Grand Central to access my account.  I access it along with my email and other Google services I use, such as Google Reader.  I tell you there are plenty of reasons to fear Google but damn they make it difficult to not use!  Yeah I’m a junky as far as Google is concerned.

Along with the upgrades I just mentioned, there were a few I hadn’t really paid attentiopn to.  Today I got a phone call from somebody trying to sell me something.  I let it go straight to voicemail as usual.  I didn’t even bother listening to the message.  These voicemails get emailed to me and I can listen to them on my blackberry if I want or listen to them on my computer later on. 

So after the call I got an email on my phone from Google Voice, just like I used to with Grand Central.  When I opened the email I was FREAKIN’ AMAZED.  The email message didn’t just have a “play” option to listen to the voicemail, it TRANSLATED the voicemail to TEXT and displayed that text in the message of the email!  Just like that I knew what the message was and deleted the email.  And I was stunned.

So obviously it’s beneficial for Google to translate this message to text for me.  With text in the email Google can now serve ads that are relevant to me while I am reading my email.  If it was just a message that said “play” and didn’t have anything about the actual message the ads would be meaningless to me.  Kind of like the same problem Youtube is having with Video.  So Google has invested probably like a million dollars, or something crazy, to be able to translate my voicemail messages I get from Google Voice into text.  And I love it.

Another feature they have added is the ability to send and receive text messages from my Google Voice phone number.  Insane!  Now there is no reason why I shouldn’t give this number out rather than my real cell phone number.  Am I just another pawn in Googles grand scheme to take over the world and own us all?  I just might be but man it’s hard not to love their services.