I have been extremely impressed with the functionality of Google Voice.  For those of you not familiar, Google Voice is simply a free internet phone service.  You receive your own phone number, voice mail box and a myriad of features that are both powerful and super cool.  There is one caveat, however; you need to already have a mobile phone or land line to take full advantage of the service.  The features I have found most useful are as follows:

Call Widgets

If you have browsed my Contact Me page, you may have noticed that you can place a phone call to my Google Voice number.  This widget will ask for your name, phone number and whether you want to keep your number private.  When you click connect, Google Voice will dial both your phone and my designated phone and connect the call.  Both number are kept private throughout the entire process.

Read more about Call Widgets here.

Replacing Mobile Phone Voice Mail with Google Voice Mail

I currently have my mobile phone forwarding all missed calls to Google Voice Mail rather than the default Verizon Voice Mail.  I prefer this because I like to have my voice mails integrated with my Google Mail.  I also think the voice mail transcription feature is very helpful on my Blackberry.  I hardly ever listen to voicemails anymore.  I just read the transcription email Google sends me.  There are times though when the transcription doesn’t do a very good job and makes for a few giggles when you read the nonsense it sends you.

As you can see, the transcript feature can be bundles of laughs sometimes.

Read more about Google Voice Mail here.

Google Voice Blackberry App

The Google Voice Blackberry app integrates into my phone’s call features and address book.  I can choose to make a call or SMS a recipient via my Google Voice number instead of my mobile number.  When doing this, Google Voice keeps a nice little log of calls and SMS sent and received.  Placing a call this way also allows me to use some of the features that my mobile service doesn’t provide, like recording calls.

The Google Voice Blackberry App can be downloaded here.

Invites

I currently have two invites for Google Voice that I would like to hand out.  Please leave a comment on this post, making sure to fill in the e-mail address field correctly. I will draw names on 2/3/2010 to determine who I send invites to.

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