Tuesday, August 14, 2012

In praise of Google Voice

I dislike G+, but there are some old-school Google products I love.

Google Voice might be at the top of the list.

It's not just that I save over $1000 a year on long distance charges because Google Voice.app lets me call Montreal for free from my AT&T 4S.

It's also that when I travel I configure my Google Voice business and personal numbers to send me email only. Then I forward my mobile and home numbers to my Google Voice [1]. I get all my messages by email when I've got WiFi -- and I don't run up any roaming charges. Tonight, for example, I picked up a message that VISA had locked my card due to international charges (easily fixed, next time I'll call ahead).

It's a great service. I worry that Google is going to drop it -- they don't seem to have a way to make money from it. I wish they'd just start charging me.

[1] There's a bit of a trick to this. You can't forward from a number that's associated with the GV account -- you just get your voice mail interface. Since I have two GV numbers I can work around that.

1 comment:

Michael said...

I also like Google Voice. I've just had some success syncing my Mac Contacts with Google Contacts and Google Voice, using the beta of an address book program called Cobook. The first attempt generated some duplicates from entries where the company name had accidentally been entered as a personal name, but otherwise it has worked.

Google Contacts isn't available from the Google interface as far as I can see, but I get there at this URL: https://www.google.com/contacts/#contacts