One Number to Rule Them All…Google Voice!

by Matt Stratton on July 23, 2009

When I was a kid, it was easy to remember phone numbers. For one thing, we didn’t care about area codes. But also, everyone had one phone number – and it didn’t change. My parents’ home number is the same one that I grew up with – even when we moved across the street, our number didn’t change. Heck, little Tommy Keller moved practically across town and his number was still the same.

These days, it’s a lot more complicated. Everyone has mobile numbers, work numbers, and some people even still have home numbers. Granted, with the current state of number portability, at least your number will stay consistent if you switch mobile carriers – but that’s still just one number out of several that we all have. It’s not unheard of for a person to have at least four different phone numbers – desk phone, work cell phone, personal cell phone, and home phone. That’s a lot of numbers to remember! Plus, it’s a lot of phones to have to try to call.

For example, if I want to get my wife on the phone, I will generally call her at her desk. Hmm. No answer. Hey, it’s lunchtime! Let me try calling her cell. Nope, voice mail there too. Oh wait! That’s right! She was going back to the house for lunch today. Call the house, and voila – wife on the phone. That’s way too complicated.

Enter Google Voice.

Google Voice began life as a service called Grand Central. The principle is simple enough – as a Google Voice user, you have one single phone number which you give out to people – but it is available from all of your phones. Sound complicated? It’s really not. Here’s how it works: when someone dials my Google Voice number, some or all of my phones ring (more on that later). I answer whichever phone I want to use. I hear a recording telling me that I have a call from <caller name>. I then have the choice to answer the call, send it to voice mail, or even listen in on that voice mail (with the option to “break in” at any time).

It’s a pretty slick implementation. I can even transfer the call from one phone to another. For example, if I’m chatting with you on my desk phone at work, but then realize it’s time to go home, if I just punch the star key, it will ring my other phones…allowing me to “move” the call to my cell. I can set up caller groups so that calls from certain people ring certain phones. And I can set specific phones to only ring during certain times. Here’s how I have my work desk phone set up:

Notice that my work phone only rings during the work day

Notice that my work phone only rings during the work day

Google Voice integrates with your Gmail contacts, so if someone calls me who is in my Contacts, instead of Google Voice prompting them to say their name when they call, they get punched straight though and the GV recording tells me their name when I pick up a phone. Additionally, if the person is in my Contacts, in the voicemail history on the GV website it will display the caller’s name, instead of their phone number, as it does for my mother below:

voicemail

Notice anything neat about that voice mail? Yes, that’s right – in addition to being able to listen to it online (I could also dial in from my phone), Google has attempted to transcribe it (I also get an email with the transcription, although you could also have a text message sent instead). Of course, the transcription is not always accurate, but it is kind of fun. My mom gets a kick out of seeing what Google thinks she said.

There are a bunch of other great features of the G-Voice system – as mentioned before, you can set up caller groups and you can even have different greetings for different groups. I don’t actually do that. Google Voice also supports text messaging, so you can have people text you at your GV number and have those texts either sent to you as emails, or texted to other cell phones. I did discover the other day that while my GV number can *receive* text messages from international numbers…I cannot actually send to them.

Making calls from your Google Voice number is where it gets tricky. There are a few ways to do it, and none of them are really super great. One way is from the web interface; you log onto Google Voice and place the call from the web – telling it which of your phones you want to call from. It them calls YOU on YOUR phone, and when you pick up, connects you to the number you wanted to call. This is really a roundabout way to do things, although useful when doing a callback from a voice mail on the website.

Another method is by calling your own Google Voice number from one of your phones, and then walking through a menu to dial the number. Also not very easy, but if you put the speedial and pause commands into your phone, you can automate it somehow.

The best method would be to use an app on a smartphone to handle all the dialing for you. Google recently released official apps for both the BlackBerry and for Android to handle this. There is no “official” iPhone app yet, but there’s a decent one in the app store (it’s not free, but I don’t think it’s very expensive either).

To make a call using the BlackBerry app, you navigate to the person you want to call in your address book, and then using the context menu, choose “Call With Google Voice”, as you can see here:

dialer1

You can also manage your voicemails and text messages from the app. Again, it’s not ideal – the previous app I used on my BlackBerry, GVDialer, worked in an “intercept” manner, where all outbound calls from my BlackBerry were intercepted by the app and then redialed using Google Voice. I haven’t decided which I prefer.

At this time, Google Voice is invite-only, and no, current Google Voice users don’t have invites they can give out – you have to sign up for one and hope Google picks you. I’ve personally been using the service for about two years (I was a Grand Central user before the Google acquisition) and while I haven’t gotten a full adoption from my friends and colleagues yet (my wife, especially, refuses to call me on my Google Voice number), over time more and more people are using that number to call me.

What do you think? Have you tried Google Voice yet? Are you eagerly waiting for an invite? Do you think the whole thing is for the birds? Let me know in the comments!

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  • Caroline
    Why are some of the words in the transcription gray?
  • The grey words represent words/phrases that the Google system "isn't sure about". They usually are "guesses" by the voice-to-text system.
  • You're really lucky to have already been using Grand Central, I noticed Google's Voice site being in beta, and although I'm registered for their beta service I still am waiting patiently on my invite. I'm glad to see Google finally stepping into the Telecom area and this service should be great for those of us with multiple landlines, cell phones and international travels.
  • Wow, this is different, way beyond Skype and everything else.
    .-= Ronad Lee´s last blog ..A Seducer is Not Born, He is Made – As No One is Born Dumb – They Just Get That Way =-.
  • By the way, what's the iPhone workaround you hinted at?
    .-= Nilesh Jahagirdar´s last blog ..nileshj: @xcubelabs Hello! check if you get this. TESTING. =-.
  • The iPhone "workaround" is using an app (in the App Store) called "GV Mobile". What that basically does is the same thing that GV Dialer did - when you dial a call, it actually calls your Google Voice number first, and then punches in the proper codes to dial the number you WANTED to call. It works fairly decently.
  • My biggest worry about GV is call quality. I haven't tried it on my iPhone yet, but I have heard that it just doesn't sound the greatest, that there can be extreme lag, etc. Have you had any bad experiences like that?

    I have a GV number, and while I don't plan on giving it out to tons of people, I may start using it for my "work" cell...so I can screen calls and not give clients my personal cell # if at all possible.

    Another beef I have with it is that you can't set it up to call an extension, so it's totally useless to me from a work perspective since I don't have a direct number.
    .-= Jess´s last blog ..My iPhone Hates My Tape Adapter =-.
  • I haven't encountered call quality issues in the 2 years I've been using the service - that being said, I don't talk on the phone a ton, so most of my experience has been SMS and voicemail related. Still, over the past two years there've got to be several hours worth of voice, and I haven't much noticed a call quality issue. Of course, it's possible I was getting drops or bad quality and just chalked it up to my cell phone.

    Yes, the lack of "extension support" can be a real chore for that. I think it's a good idea to try to use it as your "firewall" for your work cell phone, so that you can be available when out of the office, but only on your terms. You could even set up a caller group, put your clients in it, and have those numbers only ring your mobile at the times you want to hear from clients :) Or if you are only using the GV number for clients to call you, make it so that your work cell ONLY rings during the times you are set to work.
  • Excellent post...made for a great read. I liked the way you made everything clear with screencaps and all. I've just activated Google Voice, so I also learned a trick or two here.Thanks!
  • As you said, there was a time when I could remember all the phone numbers (there were so less to remember!) and dates. How I started forgetting dates is perhaps more related to how old I get each year, but the phone numbers - you are right, almost everyone has 3-4 contact numbers these days. But why worry? My mobile saves them for me, and I only need to remember the name of the person I wish to call. One day when I start forgetting names,... that's a different story :)

    Google Voice seems like a good idea, I have been hearing of implementations like these elsewhere as well - how your favourite TV program travels with you from home, to your car, and to you office.

    Here from Netchick - though you asked me to skip, I came anyway, and visited Thomas as well !
    .-= Jean´s last blog ..Likes & Dislikes on a Thursday =-.
  • Google Voice? What will they come up with next? I swear that Google has found a way to organize, archive, and collect everything these days. I'm wary about calling folks using Google, so I'll have to stick with my cell phone I guess.

    Thomas :)

    (NetChick sent me *again*.)
    .-= Thomas´s last blog ..The Modern Day Renaissance Man =-.
  • Steve Kennedy
    I have used GV since it was Grandcentral. It has taken time for folks to catch on to the GV number, but the best part is that it has allowed me to screen calls between work and home with ease. My office location often moves from one building to the next and it allows folks to not really care where I am as they now only have to dial one number to get me. I changed my personal cell number last year and now basically only my wife and close family have that number. GV is for everyone else. Nice write up by the way. I did not have the Blackberry app, but promptly downloaded it after reading your review. I also did not know about the feature to switch between phones hitting the star button so I will give that a whirl too. I just hope they open it open to invites again soon. I know a bunch of friends I have been trying to convert for some time, but no invites where available.
  • Great write up Matt, sounds really cool! gotta love how they "attempt" to translate the message, wow is that off! Anyway, hopefully they'll do something about using the google voice number to dial out so that it's easier...

    Oh and btw, my parents are one of those people that have the same number for forever.. same email address too. Meanwhile I change phone numbers and email addresses regularly, it seems.
    .-= Ari´s last blog ..The things we do because of Carrie Bradshaw and the Sex and the City women… =-.
  • Nicolle
    Wow, you lost me at Google Voice!! Lol...I know people who use GV & love it. Personally, I never pick up my home, cell or desk phone because I hate talking on the phone!! Great blog though!!
  • Actually, I have the same thought myself! I do NOT like talking on the phone...so I can see why it seems to make less sense to have a way to make it EASIER for people to call me. But I have to say - the "listen in on voicemail" feature is AWESOME for people like me who only want to talk when it's important.

    Also, the humor of Google trying to transcribe my mother's voicemails cannot be overstated.
  • I don't have that many numbers (and my work number changes all the time), but without number portability the hassle of telling everyone to call a new number from now on is too much. I know they're working on number portability though.

    It looks really slick for folks with too many phones.
  • I do agree that the number portability issue is a big one. And it's really why there's been "limited adoption" for my friends to use this number to call me.

    Where I find it to be the true killer app is for those of us with "work" cell phones. Right now, my main cell phone is the one that actually belongs to my employer. So let's say that everyone calls me on that phone. Well, one day, I might not work for this employer anymore...and now I have to quickly inform EVERYONE who has my number to stop using that one...because if I don't, my friends are going to start calling someone else when they think it is me (when my work cell phone gets re-allocated to someone else).

    Another great use is number screening - you can "block" certain numbers within Google Voice. So if I only ever give you my GV number, and then later on you turn out to be a total tool and I hate you, I can just block you in GV and never have to hear from you again - and I've never revealed my actual phone numbers.

    Ultimately, though, you're right - until you can port your current number to GV, it's not really going to have wide adoption. Which is partially why I think Google hasn't done that yet...by not having the number porting they're actually intentionally keeping adoption rates low and controlled...for now. This was also my theory on why Apple took as long as they did to support Exchange on the iPhone :)
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