Google Voice

So! I just got an invitation to Google Voice, which centralizes your (presumably many) phone numbers under one Google number, assigned to you at the start. So, they give you a number, and your work phone and cell phone and all can be connected through the google number. So someone dials the Gnumber, they all ring. Interesting, but frankly I can't see the utility that much unless you're juggling a bunch of phone numbers. I think that's probably rare. Still, the utility is there, but it would be much more useful if you could redirect calls on the fly, say if you step away from your desk work calls go to your cell. Using GPS to that end would be a maaaaaajor coup in my estimation.

One cool but kind of useless feature is the transcription of voicemails, which I've wanted quite badly in the past, but which unfortunately suffers from terrible hearing at the moment. Like all google products, it will no doubt get better, but for now it's pretty terrible, at least at decoding Sam's speech.

One beef I have with the service is that the old name for it, Grand Central, was like a quadrillion times cooler. Paired with a stylised image of a train terminal, it would be pretty awesome. Google Voice sounds lame, but I suppose I can understand that they want to bring it closer to the google brand than say... Youtube, which was an established brand before Google happened.

oh man, I'm tired. It literally took me half an hour to write this out. Give it a try though, it's fun stuff! I hope you all get invites soon, no idea why mine came so early.