What Does Google Voice Have to Offer, and What it Does Not

Google about 2 years ago bought a company called Grand Central for $45 million in cash. Google closed invitations, and hadn't touched it or so we thought until now. Google has opened what is called Google Voice, the new Grand Central.

Many people who are not familiar with what Grand Central was might find it hard at first to figure out what Google Voice is. First here is what Google Voice is not. Google Voice is not, a carrier replacer(Well at least not yet). What this means is you will not be throwing away your contract with Verizon, t-mobile or At&t just yet. Also it is not an application for you phone. The best way to describe, what Google Voice is, is actually best described as a free upgrade for your phones.

Notice how I said phones, plural. What Google Voice does is give you one new phone number which is essence connects all your phones to that one number. So when someone calls that number, all the phones tied to it will ring. You can tie office phone, home phone and cell phone all together!

So big deal, Google Voice can tie a few phones together, but that's not just the only thing it does. But before we get into all the great features Google Voice has, lets also mention that the number Google gives you stays with you for life. So if you ever switch carriers, you will never again have to tell all your friends and family your new number, because you can just tie your new phone up with your Google number!

When people call you at your Google number you can do a lot of things. The first feature Google Voice offers is call screening. When call screening is turned on, if someone calls you who is not one of your contacts, they will be asked to state their name. Then on your end when you pick up you will here their name and can decide if you want to pick up or not. If you don't pick up it will just keep ringing and go to your Google voicemail.

Your Google voicemail or Google inbox for voice, is not your phones regular email. You can access it one of two ways. You can call your Google Voice number, and punch in your pin and listen to your voicemails on your phone, or you can access them online. When you access them online, you can listen to them and or even read them. Google Voice has an option to have your voicemails transcribed. What this means is as soon as a voicemail hits your inbox, Google works on converting it to text. You can even have the text of the voicemail texted to you so you don't even have to access your voicemail! The transcribing process is not perfect and will make mistakes. It will also make words it wasn't sure of when transcribing a grayer color so you can tell if it isn't right. Over time this system is suppose to learn and get more accurate, so hopefully Google will eventually have a near flawless transcribing system!

Also in your Google Inbox you can view, store and send text messages. Whats great about having text messages and voicemail stored on Google is that you can search them. So if you remembered something a friend sent you but no longer have the text on your phone, you can search for it in your Google Voice inbox.

Lastly in your Google Voice inbox you can see all your received calls and placed calls like you can also see on your normal cell phone. Along the side panel where you can select all this you will also see another option to see recorded calls. This is another feature Google Voice has to offer, the ability to record calls. While on the phone with some who has called you, you can press a number and start recording the call. This can be useful if someone is giving you directions or a shopping list of groceries to pick up. Now you will never forget.

Some other nifty features Google Voice offers is the ability to give custom answering machine messages to individual people or groups. So you can group you office contacts together and your friends in another group and give them separate voice mail messages.

Google is yet another step for Google in the direction of the mobile industry, after their first step which was android. It will be extremely interesting to see where they take Google Voice, and Android. Google could be a big threat to the big phone carriers in the near future.