I LOVE Google voice....it's an awesome leap into FREE technology for me. I've been searching for a way to have a number that is not associated with an address, in addition to my cell and home....AT LAST! Way easy to establish with superb online instructions and support. Go Google, now come to Sarasota and get us all connected!
THANK you for that note! I had looked around the Google Voice site initially and did not find that information. But after seeing your post, I searched the help a bit more, and I found out that they DO indeed claim that you can "take the number with you." So thanks for setting me straight!
You're slightly confused because they never changed the text on the screen. They could mean when it becomes available in your area, or when they need more beta testers in your area you will be among the first considered.
I love u google!! This is the sickest app ever!!! They just released the app for my G1 and I basically have unlimited calls and sms right now. All my outgoing calls and incoming calls are processed by the app, so no more dialing to my google voice number and pressing 2. Everything is now automatic. The android app takes care of everything including the voicemail, sms and calls!, no hassle at all. So frickin' cool
well, they still use the information themselves..for example, they may use the transcription of your voicemail, "did you remember our anniversary?!" to advertise to you local flower shops or something. Plus something evil probably.
theek hai theek sone ja raha hun sab kuchh Bata Dena jo maine bheja hai aur jo aap se bhi bheja hai cal aaunga parella Sharda Mandir ke pass mein account number abhi nahin sakte batao jab bataiye
Now that I think about it, maybe the workaround is to get another number... just a cheap virtual number from Vonage for instance (VOIP works fine for me with GV by the way), and forward all numbers to that... and connect THAT number to GV.
finally, this used to be known as grand central... and was private.... now there changing the name and going public... i have been waiting for 8 months
It's all free. I use it. The only charges you get are your normal charges by your carrier. For example, you get charged cell phone minutes if you answer a call forwarded to your cell, or if you make a Google Voice call from your cell. You can make free long-distance calls from your home phone or other landlines, send and receive free texts to anyone from the Internet while using your Google account, and do lots of other things for free. There's even free voicemail.
It is great! I have it on my iPhone and it does everything as shown plus way more! Just get it and if you have any brains at all you will understand how it works! The best 4 letter word out there....FREE!!
I understand the reason, just not what they expect you to do with the word/phrase thing. Everything I tried with it came up null. Anyway I opted for a phone number that looked ok.
Biggest issue: apparently the "number portability laws" don't apply. You can't port your number in to Google (minor annoyance) and if you decide to leave Google for any reason (say, they start charging, or injecting voice-over ads), you can't take your ONE number (that all your friends and associates now know) with you. I've been waiting a LONG time for Grand Central to be public with Google, but without being able to "leave" and take the number... not so sure.
I love this- and wonder if I can forward all my other phones to GV, and then have GV forward the calls to me. This should be a loop unfortunately, UNLESS there's a workaround. If so I'd do that in a newyorkminute.
here's an interesting little fact: selling something that is free and not yours to sell can land you with a $50,000 per instance fine and up to 6 years in prison.
True. But if Grand Central had ended up with millions and millions of users for free, it might have likely been shut down or they would have needed to charge for some basic service to survive. Google has essentially innovated scalability, which they apply to existing products and make them free with plans to eventually ad-support them when the time is right.
from google's terms of service: 5.5 Unless you have been specifically permitted to do so in a separate agreement with Google, you agree that you will not reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade or resell the Services for any purpose. you agreed to this when you got your wave invite.
I wish the choosing part of this process made more sense to me. I'm supposed to select an area code, and then a phrase of word. I don't get why I'm doing that. I'd like to understand what that is about before choosing a number, since it may give me a better sort of choice.
yep, pretty big fan so far, Grand Central was cool, great idea, props to them for inventing it, but Google has added a lot of features. That said, its not ready for the public yet, needs some work weeding out bugs.
Using Gizmo (Software Phone w free incoming) you can actually use the service to make free calls without ever having a phone. Though if you have internet...it is likely that you do infact have a phone.
Eh, I wish...I hope they introduce this later but it seems right now you still have to use your phone to make a call, 'cept it just rings it. That's good for a landline but I have an awful prepaid :\
read this too: Google hopes to make money by selling low-cost international calls. Rates begin at 2 cents a minute for land-line calls to countries such as Germany and Spain, but go up to 18 cents a minute for mobile calls.
GC has been amazing for me as I'm living in Canada. It's helped me stay in touch with aIl of my American friends. I don't understand why Google is taking away a service that I've been using for a long time. It's a bit of a tease to send me an invite to switch to GV and then tell me that I can't after I've been using GC since inception. I hope this gets resolved fairly.
@anzonix Same here; I realized it a few months ago when I was reading about Google's OS... It's only a matter of time until you see a Google MP3 and Google Computer... Google clothes, Google Cars, Google Houses, City of Google, etc.. okay last few were a bit exaggerated but still...
I think if you just sign up you can get an account (after a short waiting period, I believe 48-72 hours). I got mine from my developer friend at Google back in June and I haven't looked back :) Perhaps I can send some people invites, yea?
I remember this stink with the crawler indexing the voice messages. Fortunately they closed that loophole as soon as it was discovered. If you chose to make the message public or not, it is un-crawlable by Google's spiders
Someone has to pay for the service, upgrades, etc. I'm all for the AdWords if they continue to offset Google's costs and we continue to get free service. The ads have even helped locate great service providers that were off my radar.
i have had mine since it was grand central i love it for a long time i used it to get free calls on my cell phone back in the day when the only free calls you could get on a plain was a top 5
You've got it. ADVERTISING. That's why text transcripts of voicemail will grow in importance to the service. The text becomes easily searchable to Google. It will allow them to sell highly targeted AdWords based on the content of your voicemail transcripts.
I get what you're saying about that part but then you said "or to the government" and I was just saying that they don't need to sell any information to the government because the government already has it and more.
This feature is opt in. Those users opted to make those voice mails "public" and this google bots crawled them. Unless you choose to do so, this will not happen.
in the usa or canada, one can call other countries for a small per/min charge, but as of now subscribers to google voice is only available for north americans.
This is free-economy, you give up your privacy for goods. The next step would be giving up your freedom for goods, that step would be really messed up, but in certain way it is actually happening. But Google makes it look less evil offering unbelievable good products and services.
Thanks. You know nothing about me. I done learnt how to read pretty good. I've read "1984" & seen all 3 Matrix movies. Never seen any of the Terminators. Don't forget Minority Report. Knowing "everything I've done" doesn't make them smarter than me. If I'm too weak to resist their marketing, then it's MY fault. If they actually bring my attention to something that I want/need and wasn't aware of, cool.
The adverts don't bother me. And for those who are worried, the simple answer is, don't use the service. Vote with your feet. Google won't be worried, they'll get more than enough users.
I heard 1 reason its taking so long to get the invites is that some tech savvy people are using ways to request hundreds of invites for themselves and cause others to be queued behind. The invites are then sold on Ebay to people who don't want to wait.
This is really neat though this increasingly scary..Google is owning all of us!!!! They have all your personal info in one place - Your e-mails, documents, visited sites, and now you phone numbers and calls. I love Google, but think twice before y'all sign up for all Google services.
![fellow fellow - พรุ่งนี้ไม่มีใครรู้ feat. INK WARUNTORN [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QP6JyjYx_W0/mqdefault.jpg)
I LOVE Google voice....it's an awesome leap into FREE technology for me. I've been searching for a way to have a number that is not associated with an address, in addition to my cell and home....AT LAST!
Way easy to establish with superb online instructions and support. Go Google, now come to Sarasota and get us all connected!
THANK you for that note! I had looked around the Google Voice site initially and did not find that information. But after seeing your post, I searched the help a bit more, and I found out that they DO indeed claim that you can "take the number with you." So thanks for setting me straight!
Now this is the most complete "mobile" service that can truly launch a revolution!! Would loooove to know more about it and experience the wonder!!
I finally got my invitation after waiting for a year and a half... using it with my Magic Jack and it works perfectly. Love all the options!
This is the future of telephone communication. When it comes out of beta, everyone's going to sign up and start using it.
Sounds like airplane safety demonstration 😂
...And thank for flying with American Airlines.
🏫⛪🏬
this is a really Great Service. I start using it and it works flawlessly. If they have future Contact Sync with mobile phones will be even better.
Google Voice ROCKS! Been using it almost two years now.
Actually, with a google#, US calls are totally free when placed through the service.
Got my invite last week and it is great!
You're slightly confused because they never changed the text on the screen. They could mean when it becomes available in your area, or when they need more beta testers in your area you will be among the first considered.
I love u google!! This is the sickest app ever!!! They just released the app for my G1 and I basically have unlimited calls and sms right now. All my outgoing calls and incoming calls are processed by the app, so no more dialing to my google voice number and pressing 2. Everything is now automatic. The android app takes care of everything including the voicemail, sms and calls!, no hassle at all. So frickin' cool
Awesome service, I can't wait to get this! I would even pay for it.
well, they still use the information themselves..for example, they may use the transcription of your voicemail, "did you remember our anniversary?!" to advertise to you local flower shops or something. Plus something evil probably.
I've been using this non stop for the past 3 days...its great!
Theek hai ek bhi chij ka pata nahin chalna chahie bhai ko sabji kar dena DJ mein
theek hai theek sone ja raha hun sab kuchh Bata Dena jo maine bheja hai aur jo aap se bhi bheja hai cal aaunga parella Sharda Mandir ke pass mein account number abhi nahin sakte batao jab bataiye
,
Now that I think about it, maybe the workaround is to get another number... just a cheap virtual number from Vonage for instance (VOIP works fine for me with GV by the way), and forward all numbers to that... and connect THAT number to GV.
Google is slowly becoming bigger then Microsoft.
One word, AWESOME. Only problem is that people who know about it will no you are ignoring them.
finally, this used to be known as grand central... and was private.... now there changing the name and going public... i have been waiting for 8 months
It's all free. I use it. The only charges you get are your normal charges by your carrier. For example, you get charged cell phone minutes if you answer a call forwarded to your cell, or if you make a Google Voice call from your cell. You can make free long-distance calls from your home phone or other landlines, send and receive free texts to anyone from the Internet while using your Google account, and do lots of other things for free. There's even free voicemail.
omg all the comments are from like 10 years ago im looking upon an ancient relic
It is great! I have it on my iPhone and it does everything as shown plus way more! Just get it and if you have any brains at all you will understand how it works! The best 4 letter word out there....FREE!!
I wish they'll put wave and voice into Gmail.
That'll make Gmail the ULTIMATE email service.
I understand the reason, just not what they expect you to do with the word/phrase thing. Everything I tried with it came up null. Anyway I opted for a phone number that looked ok.
Biggest issue: apparently the "number portability laws" don't apply. You can't port your number in to Google (minor annoyance) and if you decide to leave Google for any reason (say, they start charging, or injecting voice-over ads), you can't take your ONE number (that all your friends and associates now know) with you. I've been waiting a LONG time for Grand Central to be public with Google, but without being able to "leave" and take the number... not so sure.
I got the same problem, (I'm from outside the US: Netherlands). I hope it will support more countrys and states.
I love this- and wonder if I can forward all my other phones to GV, and then have GV forward the calls to me. This should be a loop unfortunately, UNLESS there's a workaround. If so I'd do that in a newyorkminute.
here's an interesting little fact:
selling something that is free and not yours to sell can land you with a $50,000 per instance fine and up to 6 years in prison.
True. But if Grand Central had ended up with millions and millions of users for free, it might have likely been shut down or they would have needed to charge for some basic service to survive. Google has essentially innovated scalability, which they apply to existing products and make them free with plans to eventually ad-support them when the time is right.
I want Voice Mail--> TXT NOW !!! That is awesome. I hate listening to VM...would rather view it in txt format.
a google phone number is like a regular number, but it's awesome.
at the moment this is only available in the US.. wish it came here at Oz land too..
It's good but Google Voice should also be expanded outside US. India? Yes, India may be included.
from google's terms of service:
5.5 Unless you have been specifically permitted to do so in a separate agreement with Google, you agree that you will not reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade or resell the Services for any purpose.
you agreed to this when you got your wave invite.
I wish the choosing part of this process made more sense to me. I'm supposed to select an area code, and then a phrase of word. I don't get why I'm doing that. I'd like to understand what that is about before choosing a number, since it may give me a better sort of choice.
yep, pretty big fan so far, Grand Central was cool, great idea, props to them for inventing it, but Google has added a lot of features. That said, its not ready for the public yet, needs some work weeding out bugs.
Haha... funny and good video. Made me smile when the chatting neighbor called.
I finally got an invite...stoked.
I've Google Voice and Google Docs. I use them in tandem for marketing campaigns. I think it's great.
Google voice available and TextNow available
very nice... on the other hand also sounds like a great way to track all your calls...
Got my invite like10 mins ago!! I'm stoked. this thing is actually pretty sweet :)
Now, about that super cheap myFaves plan...
I'm afraid that Google has started gaining too much power.
Vincent, get the damn phone.
Awesome, I can't wait to use this. Thank you google for another awesome product!
Using Gizmo (Software Phone w free incoming) you can actually use the service to make free calls without ever having a phone. Though if you have internet...it is likely that you do infact have a phone.
got my # after a long signup wait, this thing is absolutely fantastic.
I like! You can do this for a business in the UK already see TeleWare's intelligent Number
已经在用google voice，很不错的
I just got my google voice number its AWESOME! =)
Got my invite and number today. It rocks!
Eh, I wish...I hope they introduce this later but it seems right now you still have to use your phone to make a call, 'cept it just rings it. That's good for a landline but I have an awful prepaid :\
read this too:
Google hopes to make money by selling low-cost international calls. Rates begin at 2 cents a minute for land-line calls to countries such as Germany and Spain, but go up to 18 cents a minute for mobile calls.
Cool !
Hey Vincent LOL
GC has been amazing for me as I'm living in Canada. It's helped me stay in touch with aIl of my American friends. I don't understand why Google is taking away a service that I've been using for a long time. It's a bit of a tease to send me an invite to switch to GV and then tell me that I can't after I've been using GC since inception. I hope this gets resolved fairly.
@anzonix Same here; I realized it a few months ago when I was reading about Google's OS... It's only a matter of time until you see a Google MP3 and Google Computer... Google clothes, Google Cars, Google Houses, City of Google, etc.. okay last few were a bit exaggerated but still...
Hey Vincent, I just ANNIHILATED your car... see you at 5.
sounds like the ultimate tracking devise to me.
Vicent here, you raaaang?
Yes I am here
Vincent
hahaha
hey Vincent,
....
hey Vincent
XD
I think if you just sign up you can get an account (after a short waiting period, I believe 48-72 hours). I got mine from my developer friend at Google back in June and I haven't looked back :) Perhaps I can send some people invites, yea?
I signed in just so I can say:
HEY, VINCENT!
hey vincent, hey hey hey.
Jmgjnw anmm
How long did it take to get the invite from when you signed up?? I am rechecking my gmail constantly as this really sounds pretty damn cool.
wow, i wish it to be in India as soon as possible.
i just got my invite a day ago. I have been using since and it is amazing!!!
I remember this stink with the crawler indexing the voice messages. Fortunately they closed that loophole as soon as it was discovered. If you chose to make the message public or not, it is un-crawlable by Google's spiders
Someone has to pay for the service, upgrades, etc. I'm all for the AdWords if they continue to offset Google's costs and we continue to get free service. The ads have even helped locate great service providers that were off my radar.
This sounds pretty cool.
What a fantastic service! I want it.
Google voice available for sell
It's services like this that make Google the King of the net.
Finally got my invite today :D
i have had mine since it was grand central i love it for a long time i used it to get free calls on my cell phone back in the day when the only free calls you could get on a plain was a top 5
You've got it. ADVERTISING. That's why text transcripts of voicemail will grow in importance to the service. The text becomes easily searchable to Google. It will allow them to sell highly targeted AdWords based on the content of your voicemail transcripts.
@ellenbread My guess is this one was made in Flash, output to a video format.
It's easy to do in flash atleast.
I get what you're saying about that part but then you said "or to the government" and I was just saying that they don't need to sell any information to the government because the government already has it and more.
Australia probably has laws against data mining, that's probably why they don't have it there.
Finally got invite after four months. Can't wait to configure...
This feature is opt in. Those users opted to make those voice mails "public" and this google bots crawled them. Unless you choose to do so, this will not happen.
No, zoe, you are missing the point. What it is really crazy is that private companies have more information than the government itself.
in the usa or canada, one can call other countries for a small per/min charge, but as of now subscribers to google voice is only available for north americans.
OMG. so cool! I certainly could use this, didnt even know about it before..luv it!
Just got this working yesterday from Canada. You need a US number to validate though
I love this service...
This is free-economy, you give up your privacy for goods. The next step would be giving up your freedom for goods, that step would be really messed up, but in certain way it is actually happening. But Google makes it look less evil offering unbelievable good products and services.
Thanks. You know nothing about me. I done learnt how to read pretty good. I've read "1984" & seen all 3 Matrix movies. Never seen any of the Terminators. Don't forget Minority Report. Knowing "everything I've done" doesn't make them smarter than me. If I'm too weak to resist their marketing, then it's MY fault. If they actually bring my attention to something that I want/need and wasn't aware of, cool.
The adverts don't bother me. And for those who are worried, the simple answer is, don't use the service. Vote with your feet. Google won't be worried, they'll get more than enough users.
Seems Google released a Voice app to Android today.
Ooo... I may have to ignore another ad. Give me a break. I'm hoping the "Plus something evil probably." was with tongue firmly planted in cheek.
I heard 1 reason its taking so long to get the invites is that some tech savvy people are using ways to request hundreds of invites for themselves and cause others to be queued behind. The invites are then sold on Ebay to people who don't want to wait.
This is really neat though this increasingly scary..Google is owning all of us!!!!
They have all your personal info in one place - Your e-mails, documents, visited sites, and now you phone numbers and calls. I love Google, but think twice before y'all sign up for all Google services.
Who says life isn't complicated already?
Google already rules my life. I bow down to Google. I love you, Google.
@jackie la fleur Well I'm fairly certain google exists, so that's already a big advantage.
Voice seeems cool!
i remember grand central, i like google voice better, but i remember how can you can sign up for grand central if you had a blogger account
So does it make it so that if somebody calls you it makes it free? Like if u choose it to ring ur cell u won't get charged for it?
sounds awesome!
Please continue to conquer the world google!
i got goog voive i love its so easy!!! it took a few weaks 4 ke 2 get the invite but i got it yesterday....... on my B-day!!! what a coindeince!!!!
I can send out three invitations. But they are too precious to use
I got my invite yesterday! Exciting!!