{"id":258,"date":"2009-03-13T11:38:19","date_gmt":"2009-03-13T15:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/?p=258"},"modified":"2009-03-13T11:38:19","modified_gmt":"2009-03-13T15:38:19","slug":"google-launches-google-voice-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/13\/google-launches-google-voice-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Launches Google Voice Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week Google launched their Google Voice<\/strong> service, which technically, is a relaunch of their Grand Central<\/strong> service.<\/p>\n

So what exactly is Google Voice<\/strong> and what can it do for you?<\/p>\n

Well, first things first, Google Voice is free<\/strong>.\u00a0 And at the time of this writing, it’s only available to existing Grand Central subscribers.\u00a0 But Google plans to make it available to everyone in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

But onto the features.\u00a0 With Google Voice, you can have one central, local number (that Google gives you), which can be used to ring up to six different phones.<\/p>\n

For example, let’s say the number Google gives you is 555-555-5555.\u00a0 You can list that number of your web site, give it to your clients, friends and so on.\u00a0 Then when someone calls that number, you can have it ring\u00a0your cell phone, home phone, business line and more.<\/p>\n

But that’s really just the tip of the iceberg.\u00a0 It also takes voice mail for you, delivers that voice mail via email or SMS and even transcribes that voice mail into text<\/strong>, so you can read it instead of listening to it.<\/p>\n

You can also record your telephone conversations by pressing a single button…the number 4.\u00a0 The person on the other end will be notified that the call is being recorded, by the way.\u00a0 To end recording, just press 4 again.\u00a0 These recordings can also be saved as MP3 files…very handy is you’re doing audio podcasts or doing telephone interviews.<\/p>\n

What else?<\/strong> How about free conference calls with up to 4 people.\u00a0 International calls at 2 cents a minute.\u00a0 Free U.S. based calls.\u00a0 The ability to block calls.\u00a0 Forward voice mails.\u00a0 Have your Google number show up on people’s caller ID’s (in a slightly round-about way) and more.<\/p>\n

It’s important to note that Google Voice is an inbound<\/strong> call service though.\u00a0 That means, for example, to record a phone conversation, the person has to call you…you can’t call them.\u00a0 And to do conference calls, everyone has to call you (that doesn’t mean you can’t call people though…you can just like you always have).<\/p>\n

You also can’t use your existing number with Google Voice…you must use the number they give you.\u00a0 But all in all, given the feature set Google is providing…and the cost (it’s free)…Google Voice may very well turn out to be one of the most popular services it offers.\u00a0 Of course they have to make money some way, so expect unobtrusive ads at some point.<\/p>\n

Below are some videos showing the features of Google Voice:<\/p>\n

Voicemail Transcripts<\/strong>
\n<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Conference Calling<\/strong>
\n<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Call Screening<\/strong>
\n<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Phone Routing<\/strong>
\n<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

To learn more about Google Voice<\/strong> and sign-up to be notified once the service is made public, click here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week Google launched their Google Voice service, which technically, is a relaunch of their Grand Central service. So what exactly is Google Voice and what can it do for you? Well, first things first, Google Voice is free.\u00a0 And at the time of this writing, it’s only available to existing Grand Central subscribers.\u00a0 But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[19],"tags":[188,189],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webvideouniversity.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}