Webware

(Credit: Google)

Google's new Google Voice has a few rough edges but for many users, it could be a life-changing experience.

The service, a relaunch of GrandCentral, which Google bought in 2007, allows you to choose a local number, which will simultaneously ring up to six phones such as your cell phone, home phone, office phone, and the phone at that vacation home that most of us can only dream about.

In addition to forwarding your calls, it also takes voice messages that you can listen to on the Web, from a phone, or read, thanks to a new feature that transcribes voice messages and sends them as e-mail and text messages.

If you have multiple phones, having a single number to reach them all can make you and your callers' lives a bit easier, and it can save space on your business card by not having to list separate numbers. The concept is simple: people are trying to reach you--not one of your phones--and Google Voice lets you decide how to route the calls.

The simultaneous ring feature can also be used by groups. Team HOPE, a support network for families of missing children, gives callers a GrandCentral number that rings the phones of several staff members to ensure that calls are always answered.

I've been using a very similar "simulring" feature on Vonage for several years and like the fact that I get to control where my calls are forwarded. Both Google and Vonage let you configure forwarding from the Web, but Google also allows you to assign a temporary forwarding number directly from the phone. That could come in handy, if you suddenly find your cell phone out of range but have access to another number where you can be reached.

The call-recording feature is very cool. At any time during an incoming call, you can press 4 to start the recorder and 4 again to stop it. That can be handy if you're driving and someone is about to give you a phone number, address, or something else that you can't write down.

The recording feature can also be used by podcasters to record phone calls that can be exported as MP3 files. And yes, there is an announcement to inform the other party that you're recording the call.

You also get free conference calls. Up to four people can dial your phone number and can be patched into the call.

Cheap international calls
People who make occasional international calls from a cell phone will get incredible savings, compared to what the carriers charge. Using Google Voice to call a landline in London, for example, costs 2 cents a minute, compared to the whopping $1.49 that Verizon Wireless and AT&T charge, if you don't purchase an international calling plan.

Even with a calling plan, the carrier rates, though much cheaper, are still higher than what Google charges. Making calls could be easier. You dial your Google number, press 2, and then punch in 011 plus the country code and phone number.

Bugs and rough edges
I have encountered a few annoying bugs in my day 1 experience with the service. For one, I'm not able to delete voice mail from my cell phone, despite following the instructions to press 7 to "archive" messages. Every time I call my voice mail, those messages are still there, as if they were new. Although the voice mail transcription service works, the message isn't always delivered promptly. Sometimes it arrives in a few minutes, but at other times, it's taken up to 20 minutes.

Although not a bug and not Google's fault, it's unfortunate that you can't use your Google number as your outgoing caller ID when you dial directly from a cell phone. Although there are ways to spoof that, for security reasons, phone companies don't allow it.

The problem is that people are in the habit of you calling back on your caller ID, which makes it harder to train them to dial your Google number. Your Google caller ID will show up correctly, however, if you initiate the call from your Google Voice Web page or if you dial your own Google number and then press 2 to dial out and type in the number. This process, I suspect, is more of a hassle than it's worth.

There also isn't yet a way to transfer an existing phone number to Google, so you're stuck having to give out the new Google number. The service works only with U.S. phone numbers; you can't forward calls overseas.

Because it's an incoming service only, you can't record outbound calls, and you can't use Google Voice to add people to a call. They have to call you.

The service is currently available only to people who had previously signed up for GrandCentral. Google hasn't announced when others can sign up.

Still, despite some flaws and limitations, this could turn out to be one of Google's most beloved services. Being able to read your voice mail and having one number that rings all your phones is terrific, especially at the amazingly low price of free.

(This post has been updated to note that your Google caller ID will display correctly if you dial via the service's Web site or use the service's dial-out feature.)

Listen to Larry's interview with Craig Walker, Google Voice guru and co-founder of GrandCentral

Listen now: Download today's podcast

SAN FRANCISCO--Google plans to unveil a service called Google Voice on Thursday that indicates Google wants to do with your telephone communications what companies such as Yahoo have done with e-mail.

Google Voice, the new version of the GrandCentral technology Google acquired in July 2007, has the potential to make the search giant a middleman in an important part of people's lives, telephone communications. With the service, people can pick a new phone number from Google Voice; when others call it, Google can ring all the actual phones a person uses and handle voice mail.

The old version could let people centralize telephone services, screen their calls, and listen to voice mail over the Web. But the new version offers several significant new features, though. Google now uses its speech-to-text technology to transcribe voice mail, making it possible to search for particular words. Gmail's contacts now is used to instruct Google Voice how to treat various callers. And Google Voice now can send and receive SMS text messages and set up conference calls.

Craig Walker,
head of
Google Voice

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Spanish news site Expansion reported Tuesday that Google plans to launch GrandCentral, an online voice communications service, in Spain sometime during 2009. According to the report, Google will allow voice calls to be placed for free, but each will be linked to the voicemail service. Currently, GrandCentral is only available in the U.S.

UGO Entertainment and its parent company, Hearst Corp., announced late Tuesday that it will acquire 1UP.com and its associated sites, GameVideos.com, MyCheats.com, and GameTab.com. A release from UGO asserts that with 1UP and the affiliated sites joining its own network of gaming properties, they will reach 40 million unique visitors each month. In announcing the sale, 1UP parent company Ziff-Davis Media noted that it will close its last remaining print publication, Electronic Gaming Monthly. The magazine was not included in the sale to UGO.

WorkLight, a company that provides Web 2.0 services for businesses, released a report Wednesday detailing how the enterprise is using widgets and social networks to generate business. According to the report, 87 percent of surveyed companies are planning to use online services to improve customer service and acquire new customers. It also found that companies are currently using widgets and social networks to identify and capitalize on specific business needs, as well as increase engagement and their reach.

Webcarzz, a company that's working to develop a virtual world that will target boys, has built an online tool that allows children to create their own 3D vehicles. Dubbed CarStructor, the app provides tools to customize 3D cars, trucks, planes, and motorcycles. Eventually, those models can be placed into the Webcarzz virtual world when it's released later this year. Developing vehicles with CarStructor is free with registration.

Google has released a new application for Mac users called "Vocito" that puts GrandCentral calling right on your desktop. It integrates with OS X's address book, Automater app, and third-party applications like Blacktree's QuickSilver to let you start a GrandCentral-powered call no matter what you're doing on your machine.

Similar to JaJah and Jaxtr, Vocito's system for setting up calls involves you first picking who you want to call, then choosing which one of your GrandCentral-connected phones you want it to be connected from. You then hit dial and GrandCentral does the rest. It's basically the same exact thing you've been able to do with GrandCentral's Web interface for years, but now you can have a deeper level of integration across your entire system.

This deeper integration centers around a slick and simple Mac taskbar drop-down application that's directly integrated with the Address Book app. It lets you start a call almost as fast as doing a Spotlight search. This is made a little easier if you're a Quicksilver user, since you can search for contacts and call them via Vocito with the included plug-in. In most cases, this worked for me with about six keyboard strokes, which I found faster than picking up my phone to dial a contact.

Vocito's simple taskbar application lets you hunt through your address book and make a call no matter what you're doing on your computer.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

If you don't have time for six keystrokes, the application lets you save a customized phone call preset as an AppleScript command. Clicking it begins the call immediately. You can leave these laying around your desktop, or put them into a folder to keep in a stack on your dock for handy "speed dialing" later on.

Vocito is free to use and will run on both PPC and Intel Macs. You will, however, need a GrandCentral account, which Google continues to keep in a highly limited beta--that is, unless you're homeless.

While GrandCentral may have been stealing headlines lately, there's another suffix-sharing phone call management service called RingCentral that can make small businesses look and function like larger ones with some pretty neat telephonic tomfoolery. The service has been around since early 2004, and today is introducing a slew of VoIP plans called DigitalLine that give users the option to use VoIP instead of, or on top of their existing landlines.

So what can you do with RingCentral? Small business owners will love it, since you can set up a ridiculously extensive set of rules to handle incoming calls, or reroute them on the fly with a virtual phone call manager called SoftPhone. The idea is to take a single or multiline setup and spread it out intelligently, while putting all the options online for you to manage and tweak while away from your office.

Make and control calls on your desktop, be they analog or VoIP.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Like GrandCentral, you can set up calls to be routed to different phones or line extensions, there are also handy business-centric settings to tweak the response people get when they call at off-business hours. For fans of GrandCentral's multiphone ring system, RingCentral has also gone the extra step of letting you add three-digit passwords to an incoming phone call to keep unintended pickups from happening. This feature actually stemmed out of users wanting to keep their children from answering a business phone call when they had forgotten to turn off the home forwarding options off, or couldn't get to their own phone in time.

The new VoIP implementation is fairly straightforward. All incoming calls can be set to be received via VoIP, letting you receive and manage phone calls while away from your landline. You can also get various minute packages to use VoIP to make outgoing calls, including an all-you-can-eat plan of outgoing VoIP for around $25/month. In contrast to consumer VoIP services like Vonage, Skype, or Comcast's DigitalVoice, RingCentral isn't aiming at cheap outgoing long distance providers, as much as the multi-line business crowd who's looking for a way to handle several lines without the hardware or staffing.

For a shot of the call log interface, click the read more link below.

... Read more

Google has just announced the much-rumored acquisition of communications service GrandCentral. TechCrunch broke the news about the acquisition last week and is now reporting the deal is rumored to be somewhere in the range of $50 million. Details about final price and terms are confidential.

This is Google's latest move into the telecommunications market and one of their biggest. For current GrandCentral customers, service will go uninterrupted. For users interested in signing up, GrandCentral is now limiting sign-ups to invitation only.

The other big change in place as of today is GrandCentral's RingShare service. Previously, users were able to upload their own MP3 sound files for callers to hear instead of the classic tone. Users are now limited to a small selection of licensed music.

There was no other news from either of the companies about integration into Google's various tools and services. Google insists that "there are no specific product plans to discuss at this time."

Universal phone service company Grand Central (review) released last night a version of its browser-based control panel designed for mobile phones. It gives you access to your Grand Central voice mail and can connect you to people in your Grand Central address book as well.

Grand Central, now in a handy smart phone-size browser.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Grand Central does its magic via the Web, not through a downloadable app on your phone, which makes the service a bit of a hack on a mobile. When you want to play a voice mail, you have to download an MP3, which on all the phones I know of will bring up a separate app. And when you want to call someone from Grand Central, it doesn't place the call from your phone--rather, the service calls your mobile phone, which pops you out of your browser and into phone mode. When you answer, it connects the other end to the person you want to talk to. And the app doesn't have access to your phone's address book.

I like Grand Central and the release of this site will be important to the service's users. It makes the service mobile-capable, but Visual Voicemail it ain't.

You can try the service on your browser or your phone: grandcentral.com/mobile. The service will be officially announced at the Red Herring conference next week.

I've been using the GotVoice (review) voicemail retrieval service for almost a year, and for the most part I've been happy with it. The free system retrieves voicemails that go to my home phone's message box and sends me e-mail links to them. Handy. On Monday, the company is releasing a major update to the service that fixes a few usability snags and adds outbound message utilities.

GotVoice now sends messages in addition to receiving them.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Current users should like the new interface. It's easier to use, and there's finally a "delete" button on each individual message.

The real action is on the outbound side. Now you can record messages on GotVoice and have them sent to any other phone, either as a regular phone call or a "stealth message" (my term for a voice message that goes straight to voicemail without making the phone ring). You can send messages to multiple users at once, even if they're on different phone networks--GotVoice understands how different networks operate. (See also: Pinger.)

Additionally, GotVoice has a nice interface for creating the greeting for your voicemail in-box. You can record a message from your computer's microphone or upload an MP3, or for a fee, construct a "celebrity greeting" from impersonated phrases. The technology is from Veritalk and is not new, but GotVoice's capability to interface with your voicemail systems and install greetings for you is pretty neat.

The company also is building a "visual voicemail" service that will let users manage all their messages from a WAP interface on a mobile phone; in other words, a poor man's iPhone. Carriers (other than Cingular, Apple's reseller for its phone) are interested in this, GotVoice CEO Curt Blake told me.

And now a message from the American president.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

I like GotVoice because setting it up and using it requires very little work and no reconfiguring of phones. You just give it your phone numbers and PINs; and it gets to work for you. If you can stand putting in a small effort, though, I highly recommend CallWave (review) as a replacement voicemail system. I'm using it, instead of GotVoice, on my mobile phone and find it to be a better and more complete experience.

If you want to go to the next step and really get your voicemail and e-mail working together, and tie all your phones into one integrated system, then check out Grand Central (CNET.com's review; The New York Times review). It gives you a new phone number that you then have to give to all your contacts, but its capabilities are amazing.

P.S. to CallWave users: GotVoice and CallWave do not play well together. When GotVoice sends a direct message to a cellular phone that's signed up for CallWave, it goes directly to the phone's old voicemail service, not the CallWave message store.

GrandCentral, the cell phone enhancement service we covered last year, is adding really handy customizable instant call widgets to their service next week. The new widgets work a little bit like Jaxtr's widget we checked out in December. You can create customized voicemail widgets with personalized greetings for your callers. There are three different styles of widgets to choose from, and they can be placed on social networking profiles, blogs, or Web sites.

GrandCentral is also adding a way to share your voicemail with other people by letting you embed it like you would with their call widgets. There's arguably an issue of privacy here, but on more than one occasion I've received a voicemail that I've wanted to forward to friends and family without having to deal with the cumbersome voice interface from my mobile provider.

During the demo last night at O'Reilly's ETel Launchpad event, GrandCentral's CEO Craig Walker showed the use of the new widgets in an eBay auction, which actually looked like a neat way for potential buyers to ask you questions without having to disclose your personal number. Whether answering buyer's queries over the phone compared to e-mail is a good use of your time is questionable, but the interface is very slick.

GrandCentral still hasn't sorted out some of our original qualms by employing a mobile interface or a plug-in for calendar apps like Outlook and iCal to help manage call rules. Regardless, it's a compelling service for people looking to manage their phones for personal and business use.