Branching out
Google acquired a company called GrandCentral back in July 2007 but only today has it become clear what its plans are for it.
The new service is called Google Voice and essentially it's a Google phone number that you can use to manage your voice communications, such as routing calls to multiple devices, transcribing voicemail to text and archiving SMSs.
We haven't had the opportunity to play with Google Voice yet, but here's the list of features:
- Call screening - Announce and screen callers
- Listen in - Listen before taking a call
- Block calls - Keep unwanted callers at bay
- SMS - Send, receive, and store SMS
- Place calls - Call US numbers for free
- Taking calls - Answer on any of your phones
- Phone routing - Phones ring based on who calls
- Forwarding phones - Add phones and decide which ring
- Voicemail transcripts - Read what your voicemail says
- Listen to voicemail - Check online or from your phone
- Notifications - Receive voicemails via email or SMS
- Personalize greeting - Vary greetings by caller
- Share voicemail - Forward or download voicemails
- Conference calling - Join people into a single call
- Call record - Record calls and store them online
- Call switch - Switch phones during a call
- Mobile site - View your inbox from your mobile
- GOOG-411 - Check directory assistance
- Manage groups - Set preferences by group
