Google Voice close to public launch, but not today
Following our report yesterday, it looks like we can now confirm Google Voice will not be opening up to the public today. Dry those eyes though — it should be happening soon. To recap, Google has kept its voice communications/SMS management service in private beta since it acquired the service, then branded as GrandCentral. Everyone who uses it loves it, and everyone who doesn’t have it wants it. Cnet’s Natali Del Conte suggested in a podcast yesterday that her source at Google pinned today as the official public launch. We got excited. When Google Voice head Craig Walker was asked about our report however, he tweeted that his team is indeed working towards public availability but today isn’t going to happen. It’s ok, Google Voice team, we’re not trying to rush you. Just know that an army of anxious users is waiting in the wings, ready to stretch out those servers at a moment’s notice.
FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
tour
eh… had my hopes up, but now there crushed. oh well hopefully soon
Their servers my go down completely the second it becomes public lol
Don’t have it, don’t want it, don’t need it, but thanks anyways.
@Jorge: Google is NOT Apple… thank god.
The real killer use of GV is to use it as your home phone number. GV works with Gizmo5 which is like Skype but works through SIP. All you need is a Linksys PAP2 or similar router and you have regular home service. It is exactly the same thing you would be getting from Vonage or Comcast’s phone service. The only difference is to make an outbound call you need to originate it from a computer or pda which will then ring to your phone and when you pick up it dials your contact. If people realized this feature it would put the phone companies out of business as soon as Google opens up GV to the masses.
Maybe the resident geek looked at the reservation requests a couple of days ago and crapped his pants?
“22 million what? Mr. Schmidt, we need a couple more servers…”
@ mike… and your point is exactly why I cannot wait for this to come out! I also plan on adding my GV number to my frinds and family so I get free calls on my BlackBerry too
Cool!
Idiot.
They been saying that for quite some time now.
Not gonna be for the masses.
Signed up for an invite…let’s see when that comes through
<– been enjoying google voice for several weeks
The text-to-speech feature works well. It’s the REAL visual voicemail.
I’ll be honest, Google Voice has a lot of great features, but there are two things that really bug me: audio quality and delay. I find that all to often I can’t understand what someone is saying, or we’re constantly interrupting each other. If I call myself, I can hear the delay is a full second sometimes. This happens on both my landline and cell. There will obviously be delay incurred by the VoIP “backbone”, but I have SIP trunking service with a small company in Pittsburg that is flawless compared to GV. Maybe they just have crappy POPs here in San Diego, has anyone had it this bad?