Russ Greenwald

I have to preface this by saying I am a google fan, maybe borderline fanatic, lets just say I like the products they offer. Are they setting themselves up to take over the world, possibly. It still does not take away from the fact that their products offer enhancements and efficiencies to my technology life.

I’m a huge gmail fan, google reader fan (I’ll write about in the new year), google wave, and many others. Though one of the best is Google Voice.

What is it

• Google Voice is a voice mail/universal phone number/free long distance service on performance enhacers
• It is not skype..

How it Works

• You sign up for google voice service
• Once you are in, you pick a google voice number, it is a legit 10 digit number. You can choose a number from almost any state, any area code. i.e. Massachusetts, and 617,508,781, etc. This phone number can be changed later if you like.
• Then you tell google your cell phone number, or your home phone number, or both.
• You then tell google voice which (your mobile or home phone) number you want your new google voice number to forward to. It can forward to both as well.

Lets get deeper

• You give everyone you know, your new google voice number, that never ever has to change. It can be your home/mobile/everything number as it can forward to any type of phone.
• People start calling you, how nice!
  • If you use gmail and gmail contacts, you can organize your contacts into groups (work, friends, family, etc).
  • Shocking as this may sound, google voice integrates with your google contacts. i.e. If you have a contact in gmail then google voice knows Russell Greenwald’s number is 555-1212, etc.
  • So.. Due to the above fact, you can configure google voice to route all calls from Russell (who is in the group, “awesome people”, you created) to just your cell, or just your home phone, or both.
  • If you don’t answer, and Russell goes to voice mail (this is where it gets good).
  • You can configure google voice to have different voice mail messages for your different groups. i.e. A formal message for the work group, a lovely message for the family group, and something hip for the friends.
  • I call, go to your voicemail, and now leave a message. This message is then transcribed into text, and emailed/txt’d for you to read. The actual audio voicemail can also be emailed to you for listening or you can go straight to the site as well google voice

Some other amazing features

• You can configure your cell phone to forward any “to be voicemails” to the google voicemail service. i.e. If someone calls your current cell, and you don’t answer, they go to the google voicemail service for recording. Which means you can take advantage of the groups for different outgoing voice recordings and voicemail transcription.
• You can send and receive free txt messages from google voice.
• You can initiate calls from the google voice web page so your outgoing number is the google voice number.
• If you are in a new location (on vacation at a friends) you can set google voice to forward all calls, temporarily, to this number.
• Google Voice on Your Mobile Phone
• Google Voice Information Page with Feature Videos
• Unlimited Free Calling with Google Voice