Google Voice invites start flowing
Following a tasty spot with NBC’s Janet Shamlian on NBC’s Today Show this morning, it looks as though Google Voice has taken a big step toward wider availability today. According to GV’s Twitter account, invites are starting to go out en masse. Now, don’t start going crazy if you’ve registered for an invite and don’t see anything hit your inbox today — as Google Voice head Craig Walker notes, the waiting list is a bit lengthy to say the least:
About GV invites…there’s a pretty long list as you can imagine…will take a little bit to get through them all:)
In due time, in due time. Again, Google Voice was spawned from Google’s acquisition of GrandCentral — the all-in-one voice calling/voicemail management solution. The service provides, among other things, a single number that can be given out to contacts. When dialed, GV will ring any and all numbers you wish simultaneously — your cell, home, office, etc — and will transcribe and manage your voicemails as well. The service is free and it also affords users free nationwide calling (and cheap international calling). In a nutshell, it’s big time. Hit the jump to see the GV spot from this morning’s Today Show and hit your inbox with the hope that an invite is ready and waiting.
Thanks, Justin!
I can’t wait to get an invite. I’ve been waiting such a long time for them to open this up.
Hurry up with those invites motherf’ers.
Just got my invite!!!
just kidding… Post when you get yours.
Fingers crossed and keep refreshing the inbox today… C’mon Google Gods shine down on me.
Where do you go to request an invite?
@Bob Kent
https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/
sweet!!! just in time… I hope my invite comes soon.
I signed up a while ago, so I’m hoping my invite will come sooner than later.
I’m soooooooo excited!!!!!! And I just can’t hide it!!!!!!!!!
Am I the only one who doesn’t understand why I need google to forward a call to my cell phone? I mean how many people here still have a home phone? And if you have a business number then it is generally something fixed in your office anyway so if you’re not self employed theres no way to port that number over to them. All the people that are saying they can’t wait to port their cell number to GV seem to be missing the huge point that you still need some number attached to your cell phone and are going to pay for that either way.
@rizza
Stop being so cynical, I didn’t know their was anything wrong with my email until gmail was released. My calendar in outlook was great until I found out how powerful Google calendar is. I had no idea reading the news could be so social until Reader was released. These are all things that Google managed to do great and things we never knew we needed until they were released.
Have an open mind about this. At this point, just having my voice mail and email rolled into one would be worth it, let alone contact syncing, having a neutral sms number and free nationwide calling.
Need I say more?
@rizza the reason is that I can then add the number that google calls me with (or that I call to make an outgoing call) to my fav 5 and get unlimited calling everywhere. Not to mention their international rates are extremely low.
chill rizza
Yes … you ARE the only one.
I’ts not the forwarding part that has value, it’s everything else … custom call routing and dumping, transfers on the fly to any one of your other numbers, voicemail transcription, on the fly conference bridging.
I’ve been using it since the Grand Central days, one of the things I have used it for is a work from home number, I can give it out to anyone, then simply dump all the callers in my “Work” address book group directly to voicemail when I’m done for the day.
@Justin
Damn thats a good idea! I don’t have Fav 5, but I wonder if they thought of that.
@rizza
As Grandcentral points out, forwarding is extremely valuable. Listening in to voicemail in order to screen calls with no caller id is another. Merlin Mann actually created a 10 minute voicemail message (that could be stopped by pressing #) just to screen computer calls.
In my case it’ll get light use, but my parents have an old number that a lot of old friends use. If Google implements number portability (as has been rumored), I’ll port their number to voice and allow them to turn off that number and save $30 per month.
For me it will be the default number given to anyone who is not a business or personal contact, e.g. info given for commercial registrations and buyers clubs. Then I can filter all of them into my voicemail.
Well, I just scanned the GV site, but there’s no option (yet) for sending invites to you poor suckers. When it does I’ll let you know!
V
even i thought do i need forwarding that much…
but having had great experience with gmail , calendar,
google docs , igoogle and what not …i think this should
be great….google brand has proved itself over years …just waiting to get the invite
if i make a call to my GV number from
my cell phone , am I still paying for minutes??
and if some one call my GV number and then GV forwards it to my cell phone.. am I still paying for minutes?
anyone knows??
yes and yes. Google Voice does not make your cell phone free.
thanks
justin , good idea
I suppose you could make the GV number one of your fave 5, friends & family on some carriers and that might save you some minutes.
I work with cell phones and I think this is great… I can use gv to filter calls and/or have coworkers calls forwarded to my personal phone without carrying 3 phones to the movies ( one for fam/friend, 1 for coworkers, 1 for customers)
No…You can no longer add Grand Central numbers to MyFaves or anything of the sort. The carriers caught onto that.
I have 4 “GrandCentral” numbers since they originally were released back a few years ago or whenever it was.
For almost a year I had it as a MyFave, which was great, because the systems recognized the incoming call as coming from my GrandCentral numbers rather than the actual number that was calling in.
To make a call using your GrandCentral number, you would just have to go to their mobile site, and hit the call link to the right of the actual phone number in the contacts.
That sends the request to the GrandCentral servers to initiate a call to you from your GrandCentral number. Once you pick up, it dials out the number you chose to call.
I MAYBE used 100 minutes a month that weren’t MyFaves at that point.
Then the carriers got smart and started sending out warnings that you had x amount of days to replace that “gateway” number with a different number before they cut it off.