Last week I received my invite from Google for Google Voice. If you havent heard of Google Voice it is a new service from Google allowing you that was created when Google bought out GrandCentral. Dont worry if you don’t want your girlfriends calls going to your home number you can assign which phones your contacts will ring. Example your friends ring your cell and home number, your work associates ring your cell and work number, your girlfriend only to your cell and those annoying sales and junk calls to go straight to voice mail wiht out ringing any phone.

Google will even send you FREE business cards to hand out with your new Google Voice number.

When I accepted my invitation the thing that struck me right off was the phone number you are assigned is not automatically assigned to you. You have a choice in assigning the number. Google Voice asks you to enter the area code you would like your phone number assigned to and a word or phrase. Google will then search all available numbers in your area code and matching your phrase and let you choose one of those numbers. If nothing matches your cosen word or phrase it will allow you to enter another word or phrase until you get a number that you like. Lets say you wanted a phone number that matched your business name of “GOOGLE”, you enter the phrase Google into the box and it comes back with

• xxx-946-6452 (xxx-9google)
• xxx-466-4526 (xxx-google6)
• xxx-246-6452 (xxx-2google)

You select the number you want and your set up with your new phone number for all your phones

After your done selecting your number you will enter the Google Voice interface. The interface is simple and easy to use like most google apps. First thing you will do is assign phones to your Google Voice number. You add ALL you numbers and assign them to groups. Each group you can assign which phones they will ring as I mentioned above. You can also assign a different greeting to each group and add new groups if one of the existing groups doesnt fit your needs. Now when someone calls your new google voice number they are directed to the correct phone even if it is a text message.

From the Google Voice app you will be able to view all your incoming and out going calls and texts and review your voicemails. Speaking of voicemails Google Voice has a few interesting tricks when it comes to voice mails. First of all when you receive a call and pick up your phone you are offered the choice of answering the call, sending it directly to voicemail or send to voicemail and listen in while they leave their message and if you decide you want to pick up in the middle of the voicemail you can hit a number and start talking. Allowing you to screen calls even on your cell phone. You are able to listen to and view all your voicemails directly from the google voice website app. My favorite thing about the google voice voicemail system is it will transcribe the voicemail and send you a text message with the full text of the voice mail that was left for you. I dont have to log into google voice to hear my voicemails since they are all sent by sms to my cell phone for me to read.

You are also able to make phone calls or send SMS message directly from the Google Voice app website. Chose a contact and click call and google voice will ring your phone then connect you to your contacts phone. Great if your contact lives on the other side of country, no long distance charges.

Google Voice also has a few widgets that let you various things like embed a voice mail to a web page. Below is my welcome message from Google Voice.

You can also add a “Call Me” button to a website and assign what phones the button will call, or send it directly to voice mail. The button below will allow you to leave me a message on my voice mail if you would like to try out the google voice feature, click on the “Call Me” button below and you can see how it works.