Seán Bulger
Google has just recently announced Google Voice , a new VoIP service from Google that links the phone numbers of customers together, based off GrandCentral, which Google acquired in 2007. The service will allow you to schedule which phone should ring at the time of day, or apparently, to allow all of them to ring when a call is incoming. This means, regardless of the number of phones you have, or will have over your life, you will only ever actually need a single number. Yet, that seems to be far from the only feature.
It appears that Google Voice will be able to screen calls, listen to voice mail messages as they’re being recorded, spam blockers to block telemarketers and the ability to block certain numbers, and SMS features. You will also be able to do things such as hold conference calls, record calls, read transcripts of voice mails, and more. You can view a full feature list over at the Google Voice website.
Given that this is a Google product, it will have a tightly integrated web component, letting you manage address books, voicemail, SMS, and numerous other options.
While I currently only have one phone to keep track of, I could still see a number of these features being fairly useful. I am interested in seeing how the platform will develop, but there certainly seems to be quite a bit of hype surrounding it already. Seriously.
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