Google Voice…

Google’s most recent technological unveiling is arguably its most game changing: Google Voice. Imagine that you could make phone calls with any phone, anywhere, anytime. Imagine that you could have one number that rang your home phone, your cell phone, your vacation home, your work phone, or even a hotel phone. Imagine that you could have a log of all your outgoing, incoming, and missed calls, a transcript of all voicemails sent directly to your voicemail and as a text message on your cell phone, and could record your call with customer service at the touch of a button.

All those scenarios (and more) are possible with a Google Voice number.

First, the not-so-good news

Google Voice is currently available by invitation only. This means you have to sign up for an invite and they will email when they have availability. My invite took approximately 3 or 4 weeks to come, but I have no idea what the current wait time is. To sign up for an invite, just enter your name and your email address. Simple as that. Then comes the tough part: the waiting. Trust me, the waiting hurts.

If you are in the military, you can use your .mil email address to get an invite in a day or two.

Sign up and set up

When you get your invite and sign up, you get to pick your own number. Mrs. Digitante’s Google Voice number ends with her birthday. My Google Voice number contains my nickname – (317) 456-AHOW (2469). They have a search feature that allows you to type in letters or numbers to search for a number in your area code. You get to select the area code as well. This was especially handy for Mrs. Digitante because she has a Chicago area code, 312, but lives in Indiana where the area code is 317. You can imagine people confuse the 2 for a 7 and misdial her number all the time. Now she has a 317 number that rings on her 312 cell phone and everybody is happy.

After sign up, the first task is to connect the Google Voice number to a phone. When you do this, Google calls the phone you select and asks you to verify a code and if it is your first phone, it will also ask you to add a mailbox greeting. You can add as many phones as you want including cell, home, work, and any other phone you want. The best part is that people can call you as a local number no matter where you are. Vacationing in Florida? Why? Its hot and muggy there. But it doesn’t matter because your friends can call you just like you were at home in Sheboygan eating a bratwurst.

Next you can set up how you want to treat your voicemails. You can select to have them transcribed and sent to your either your email account or you can have it texted to your cell phone. Either way, you still have the option to listen to them on the phone or on your computer. The transcription is shaky at times, so you may need to rely on listening to the actual recording.

Google Voice also has call screening features. You have options to request that your caller state their name if they are not in your address book. I don’t use this feature unless the person has their caller ID blocked. You can also check Do Not Disturb so that you can enjoy a nice night out with the significant other. It just directs all calls to voicemail.

Taking and making those calls

Once you have all your settings tweaked, you can start receiving calls. Making calls is not as simple, but certainly isn’t difficult.

Unfortunately, you can’t just dial the number and use Google Voice. If you just dial the number, the person you are calling will see your phone’s number and not your Google Voice number. This gets confusing for them because they don’t know what number to call – your Google Voice or your regular phone number.

There are a couple of options for making calls:

1. Dial your Google Voice number – This will connect you to your voicemail. From here you will be given the option to press 2 and enter the phone number you would like to dial.
2. Use the Google Voice site from your computer – You simply sign into Google Voice, click the Call button in the upper left corner, and enter the number. Google Voice will then call you and after you answer, it will call the other person.
3. Use the Google Voice application or the web on your phone – If you have a BlackBerry or Android smartphone, you can download an application that has all the features of the Google Voice site and will add a menu item ‘Call using Google Voice’. The Palm Pre and the iPhone may have apps available, and they are not official but should work fine. If you have most any other phone and you have access to the web on your phone, you can navigate to http://www.google.com/voice/m and use the Google Voice mobile site. You would probably want to be sure you either have a plan that includes data or investigate how much the data you use is going to cost before you explore this option.

Google Voice also includes free calling to Canada and has extremely good rates for calling overseas numbers so if you make any calls to foreign countries, Google Voice is a great tool.

Godspeed

Hopefully your invite for Google Voice arrives shortly and you can begin to enjoy the benefits. In the meantime, if you have any questions about why you would need Google Voice, feel free to contact The Digitante by heading to the About page and emailing or calling.