Google Voice, Whats Up?

[SLP-NYCT]

OK, whats up with Google Voice. They had a 2 minute segment on the Today Show saying that it was released TODAY! Now I had been signed up for notification for this for a long time and I never got anything. I then go to the site and it is STILL saying that it is Not Open to the public yet.

Did someone screw up? This is the second "press release" where the information is wrong. Remember the $8k being used as a deposit? Now Google. I think corporate America is missing a Checks and Balance System. Didn't anyone clear this release before telling the world that it is NOW available?

[GreenBayRealtor]

What exactly is Google Voice going to be? Sounds like your pretty excited looks like it's time for me to do some research.

[RESteve]

I've read that Google Voice is only being released to a reservation list. They recently registered 1Mil phone numbers with Level 3 (telecom), so many people were anticipating a full public release today.

I personally don't think that's the case. While they are opening it up, I only think it's to get the word out about it to people in key places - tech bloggers, companies, etc. I would think there would be over a 1Mil demand for a new product like this from Google, so I don't think they intended to release it to the public just yet.

It always bugs me though that they can't issue a blog post or something about the status of the public release so people could move on; or maybe that's a bad thing (moving on).

Google Vocie is basically a phone number (VOIP) that Google assigns to you that will basically ring every phone (or any phone your desire) when someone calls that number.

It can also collect voicemail messages, and what I like about that, is that it features an automatic transcribe to your language. So a voicemail comes in, and boom, it's in text and searchable in your Google Voice account.

To dial out of Google, you simple call your phone number and then dial the number you want to call. Supposedly it still shows your original number when you call, so I really dont' see the purpose for doing this unless you assign your Google Voice phone to your fav5 (TMobile) so you can call for free.

I'm sure there's more, but I think that's the jist of it.

[rmasse10]

Seems like an interesting concept, will have to wait and see if this has any value to my business or not...need to try first

[jamesww]

Wow, knowing the capabilities of indexing data Google has this just makes me feel like I am reading 1986 or should I say living 1986. But, hey privacy is just an artifact of inefficiency.

[SLP-NYCT]

The advantage of the dialing out is that WE can call our clients back from anywhere such as:


OR


and the number comes up as if we are here


Of course as James mentioned, you do GIVE UP your right to privacy and if hacked, your info along with one million others is in the wrong hands.

For me, yes I was excited about it, but what I was ultimately looking for was a really good web based PBX and I was on the Google Voice list already so I gave up and signed up for Ring Central. My only complaint is that I can do a call blast (ex: Press 1 to speak to an agent~> and it rings every agents phone. First to pick up wins or it will call Agent 1 first and if No Answer, agent 2, etc) I would have preferred a rotation. First call goes to agent 1, next call to agent 2, but oh well.

[RESteve]

Good news! I just got invited to use Google Voice. I'll start using it and get back to you guys.

[RealtorSecrets]

Steve, I received my Google Voice invite as well. I haven't dug to deep into it, but really like the transcription of voicemail. It's nice that I can get a transcript of any voicemail left texted or emailed to me.

[stevetrang]

I also got the invite this weekend. I'm trying to figure out how to implement it with my strategy. I think I'll make it my number on MLS sheets for now.

[LRE]

I hope to read all your feedback here later. I am interested to see if it works well.