12:46 PM
El DiPablo
A few days ago on the 7th I finally got the all coveted email invite from Google to use their Google Voice service! I signed up for it about a year ago when I first heard of it from one of my college instructors.
First off the bat, users cannot give out invitations themselves at this time. At least, I can’t find that option anywhere when I login. So please don’t ask me for an invite. If I could give them out, I would totally do it in the form of a contest!
So I logged in for the first time, and it immediately asked me to enter the area code for the number I wanted, then it asked to enter a four letter word to see if it was available. I entered 619 for San Diego, and TECH because I am into techy stuff. Bam! It gave me about eight available numbers all with the TECH extension. If you jokers want to give me a call you can now reach me at (619) 630-TECH!
Once logged in, the interface is rather familiar. It resembles Gmail in a lot of ways, which is good because it makes using it pretty intuitive. Here is a screen shot of it:
I’ve only been using it for a few days, but so far I like it a lot. Here is a list of my favorite features and why:
- Free nationwide calling – My cell phone reception at home sucks, but I am only paying for local service on my home phone. Now, with Google Voice, I can call long distance on my home phone without being charged
- Online text messaging – I can send SMS text messages from within Google voice, and it shows up on the recipients phone with my Google voice number. When they reply back it goes to my cell phone. When I reply on my cell it still keeps the Google Voice number on the recipient’s end.
- Free voice to text – When users leave a voice message, if you enable this feature, the messages automatically get transcribed to text format. Now I don’t have to call my voicemail box, I can just read it in an email. This feature still isn’t 100% yet, but it’s good enough.
- One number – Now I have one, simple to remember number that I can give out to everyone, and they can reach me no matter where I am.
Now, there are many more features, but so far the ones above are what I have used, and what I like. For a full list of features click on this link: (Google Voice Features)
Do you have a Google Voice account yet? What are your favorite features? What don’t you like about it? Let us know in the comments.
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