Google Voice launched a few months ago and I have had a chance to work with it over this time.  I have to say I love this service.  At this time it is only available to users who were using the Grand Central service.  It should become open to everyone in the near future.

The service allows you to choose a phone number when you sign up which you will use for your account.  Google Voice settings allow you to register multiple phone numbers that will ring when someone calls your assigned Google Voice number.  Originally, I had my Google Voice number ring my cell, my home, and my work numbers.  That was too much, it didn’t take long to turn that off.  You can set time limits so that your phones will only ring between certain hours, or you can just use the service as voice mail.  Google Voice also allows you to record a custom greeting, and screen all of your incoming calls.

Other features available with Google Voice is the ability to load a widget into a web page where people can call you from the web page.  You can set Google Voice up to email and text message you when you get new voice mail. There is a feature where you can listen in while someone leaves a voice mail for you, I have not had a chance to use this feature yet, but it sound pretty handy.  Google Voice comes complete with caller id, to tell you who it is that is calling you.  The newest feature that came with Google Voice once you upgraded from Grand Central was transcription of voice mail.  When people call and leave you a voice mail, this feature will try to take the voice of the person and write it out into an email or text message and send it to you.  It works well, depending on how the person speaks it can do a good job.

My main use for Google voice is voice mail, this is the number I give to everything I sign up for or give to people I am doing work for.  It allows me to control the calls a little better.  If I want to receive the calls I can, if I don’t I turn off forwarding and it goes straight to voice mail.  I have it email me when I receive a voice mail and it screens and transcribes all of my voice mail.

When this goes public I would get a hold of an account, you may not be able to think of a way to use it at this point in time but with people getting rid of their home telephone for mobile numbers this is another way to utilize free services to replace the old outdated ways of doing things.