Grand Central To (Finally) Launch As Google Voice. It’s Very, Very Good. | Hacker News Reader

Grand Central To (Finally) Launch As Google Voice. It’s Very, Very Good.

techcrunch.com

157 pointsvaksel52 comments

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> GrandCentral will also remain solely a U.S. service.

Alright, I am now adding Google Voice to my (Canadian) technology waiting list along with:

Amazon Kindle, Skype Inbound #, Mint.com and Braintree Gateway.

and Hulu! and Google Checkout...

I'm pretty sure that Hulu's problem is the fraking CRTC's CanCon laws.

I don't understand how youtube would be allowed but Hulu wouldn't. The real problem is that all the content is licensed regionally; Hulu has the rights to content in the US but not Canada. And we're probably just not worth the hassle.

So much for the World Wide Web; I feel like it's getting more regional every day.

and Android (with 3G)

I think this is why God made proxy servers.

Actually, that's really surprising. Why on Earth would you not be allowed to get to those services? Canada, of all countries? The 51st state? ;-)

Proxy servers don't help too much if your bank isn't signed up to share data with Yodlee, which is where all the Mint stuff comes from.

On the other hand, if you hypothetically wanted to use Amazon's Video on Demand service and got caught out by the US-only licensing restriction, you might be interested that Apache's mod-proxy can turn your Slicehost slice into a Virtual Private American.

(I feel guilty about doing this. Which is really weird, because I'm feeling guilty about trying to pay them money while every other expatriate I know just flies the Jolly Roger.)

I've been using Grancentral ever since it was aquired by google, and its been great.

The main use was so that I didn't have to give out my personal cell phone number for work, and so that I didn't have to carry a second phone.

Having a separate voicemail box just for work has been great, and I've even used the call recording feature when someone was giving me very important detailed instructions.

No concerns with spam, and I haven't noticed any downtime, so I'd recommend it.

Would love to see more integration so I don't have a whole separate address book in Grandcentral...

I've been using my GC# in a similar manner and its been a great experience. The call log and the ability to filter #'s is a good way to categorize and 'file' my phone calls - And I really like the new UI too!

I was skeptical at first when GC launched (mainly having to give out a new number), but once you properly configure your settings and start getting phone calls you start realizing the service's usefulness.

I wonder how this will integrate with Android. I suspect soon they will have a feature to use grandcentral voice mail, then I will get the fancy visual voice mail but with the text underneath.

Awesome.

I've been using G1 Central on my phone for a couple weeks now to make free calls. It's pretty awesome. Visual voicemail works great (minus the app downloading the voicemails to your sd card) and being able to sort everything online is really nice too. I'm hoping we get an official Google voice app with the cupcake update thats coming in April.

So i can't imagine why they made this a free service. I think that a lot of people would be willing to pay a reasonable price for this. I know i would(if i was in the US).

Missed opportunity? Or a lack of vision from my part?

A lot of the Google technology is based on statistical analysis, which only really works well for huge data sets. Accordingly, a lot of Google's services exist so that Google can build giant data sets based on your use. As far as I know, Google records (or can reconstruct) every single byte that you send/receive through its services except for a few of your IP address, in order to build these data sets. For example, Google Reader is free so that Google can collect attention data. Google Analytics is free for the same reason. Google's 411 service is designed to collect voice data to fine-tune its voice-to-text engine.

Some of those services also provide a platform for presenting the user with tiny classified ads, which is an additional revenue stream for them. Finally, some services are offered for free with no SLA and no customer support in order to stress-test the paid versions of those same products (Google Apps, Gmail).

"About damn time."

Gmail integration will be the killer feature here.

Has anyone checked out the TOS of this thing? I'm a pretty connected guy, and I don't mind technology infusing with my lifestyle, but where does the line get drawn?

With Google Voice, they now have access to every bit of your private life. Even if they are a "don't be evil" company, that doesn't exactly sit well. I'm surprised there hasn't been more negative press about this addition. Those wire-tapping cases got massive amounts of attention in all the major media outlets.

I'm not a paranoid person, but wow. I'm definitely staying away regardless if it makes things more convenient.

https://www.google.com/voice/about has a bunch of videos showing off the new features.

I must say, the new interface looks like a nice improvement over GC - although I'd love to see integration with my Gmail Inbox (Gmail Labs, anyone?)

One phone number for all your phones, for life.

I already have that. It's called a cellphone.

I'm not sure why this was downvoted. Negative tone? I mean, he really does have a point.

I'm interested in some of the other features (such as voice mail transcripts and advanced call routing), but the singular phone number issue was never a problem for me: my only phone has been my cell phone. I'd suspect a lot of young people are in the same boat.

While I'm sure it's more useful with multiple numbers, I've gotten a lot out of it having just one number. It gives me a second number that I can give out to folks who I don't want to give out my primary number to.

It gives you much more flexibility: you can block certain numbers, forward to calls to voicemail, forward to other phones, record calls, make calls & listen to voicemails online, etc. There's plenty of utility even if you have a single phone.

I don't get it... I'd rather prefer unlimited phone numbers for some of my phones.

What if you give your phone number to the wrong people? They'll keep calling you. You might be able to filter out some, but they can always call from another number (think phone spam).

I'd rather have the option to generate new phone numbers and give one number to each person / 'community'. Then if I quit my job I can just filter away all people calling me on my job number.

That's also why people use multiple email addresses, or plus addressing.

Except your standard 10 digit phone number scheme only allows 10 billion numbers... which isn't exactly a big enough space to allow you to generate new phone numbers whenever you want.

The idea is kind of cool though... like generating one-time-use credit card numbers for dodgy e-commerce sites.

I've been on Grand Central for a couple of years, I think. It has a feature where I can blacklist phone numbers. You even have a choice to play a "number disconnected" message to those callers. I have some head hunters from florida (I'm in Oregon) that got me in their database and wouldn't quit calling me. They now get the "number disconnected" message.

I keep hearing people say this, but the actual voice quality (you know the reason to use a phone) on cell phones still sucks a lot of the time. I hate when someone calls me from their cell phone.

Solving the multiple phone problem by forcing yourself to have only one phone is like solving a rubik's cube by painting all the squares one color. It kind of misses the point. Also: if this were a story about the ipod in 2001, would your comment have been 'I already have that. It's called a cd player'?

No, on all counts. Phone numbers used to be a problem because phone numbers were tied to phone lines which in turn were tied to copper. If you wanted to be reached at home or at work you had to take different copper and thus different phone numbers. Phone lines are no longer tied to copper, and phone numbers are (sort of) no longer tied to phone lines. My cellphone takes my phone line with me anywhere I go, and if I switch cellphone providers I can take my phone number with me.

I haven't had a home landline for almost 6 years now (granted, four of those were spent in college) and most people I know that are my age (I'm 24) also do not have landlines. The first thing I do to any work phone is to put it on permanent call forward to my cellphone. There really is no longer a need for multiple phones.

Thinking multiple phones is still a problem in the age of cellphones is like saying, "How do I solve the problem of needing to carry around hundreds of CDs and a CD player to listen to the music I want?" in the age of the iPod.

The sibling comments that argue for multiple phone numbers, on the other hand, have a point. But they should all still go to my cellphone. To be fair to Grand Central, they partially support this feature. It's just layered on with a bunch of other crap I don't care for.

Are you seriously saying you think there aren't any legitimate situations where a person would want more than a single physical phone? You've never lived or worked in a building with terrible cell phone reception, had a dead battery but still really needed people to be able to get a hold of you, had your phone stolen, or had your simcard go bad?

But the multiple phone number management thing, that's really just a marketing hook, the easiest possible sell for the mass market right now, isn't it? This service provides all of the features you could want when managing voice communications, completely independent from a physical device. I mean, really, why even have a phone at all? Just plug into your voice service however you damn well please, that's the actual story here.

Are you seriously saying you think there aren't any legitimate situations where a person would want more than a single physical phone?

I'm saying there are no situations in which I'd want more than a single physical phone. I've used more than a single physical phone, like when I'm outside the US and want a local cellphone number but don't want to lose my US number, but in every situation I'd prefer to keep a single physical phone.

You've never lived or worked in a building with terrible cell phone reception

Switch providers. Though, ideally, I should be able to get calls through VoIP on my WiFi.

had a dead battery but still really needed people to be able to get a hold of you

It's easier to find/carry a charger than it is to notify everyone that needs to be able to get a hold of me of the new number.

had your phone stolen, or had your simcard go bad?

These are exceptional situations. I can get a phone replaced within a day in such a scenario. If it's urgent I can borrow a friend's cellphone.

If it's urgent, you can borrow a friend's cellphone, that's true. But, wait, crap, now you need to notify everyone that needs to get a hold of you of your new number, which we've already established is something we want to avoid. If only there was a service that let you configure which physical device your calls were being routed to...

I would put my work phone on permanent call forwarding, but I can't figure out these damn cisco phones. If it had a multi-touch screen and gestures, then maybe I could get it done.

CNET News posted a more in-depth article http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10194446-2.html and gave an answer to a question i had: can i port a number to Google Voice? (No, not yet.)

Cell phone companies have to port numbers between carriers, I wonder why Google can't do it? I would be all over this if I could keep my cell phone number...

I suspect like Skype they are being careful not to claim they are a telco - so they don't get hit with all the regulation and requirements stuff that real phone companies have. At the moment they are treated like those companies that sell cheap international calling cards.

Please tell me this will finally kill SMS, at least in that an incoming SMS can just be routed to my gmail and I can designate an outgoing email as an SMS...

Of course I'd rather have end to end mobile email with instant (configurable) notification.

I'm with you. The SMS feature would still be useful if your contacts still use it. Or if you are the one stuck with SMS, route that as an email (assuming the recipient does not use Google Voice).

it doesn't sound like they've solved one of the bigger single phone number issues: people still have to know my mobile phone number because when I dial direct from my mobile phone, I cannot get my Grand Central number of come up as my caller ID number (the best I can tell anyway and for obvious reasons).

You can- 1) If you initiate a call via browser from GC's site, you have the option of making the number of your choice (your GC or cell/land #) or 2) if you use GrandDialler app on iPhone, it too can make the call with your GC # as the source

edit- forgot to add, there is vocito app (http://code.google.com/p/vocito/) for mac

In addition, there's now an option when you dial your Google Voice number to just dial directly - the "Place Calls" video at https://www.google.com/voice/about demos it.

Hi, this is Google Voice. It sounds like you and your friend are talking about Widgets. Here's a list of widget retailers you may be interested in. Press the 2 button to hear more about Acme Widget company. Press 3 to hear about Joe Widget and Sons...

Acme widgets are currently $2.99, press 4 to enter your credit card number and purchase widgets directly from Acme widget company. How many widgets would you like to order? Please enter the number of widgets followed by the pound sign...

> We have 100 Google Voice accounts to give out to readers, but you must have a gmail account. If you’d like one, please send an email from your gmail account to techcrunch@gmail.com (note that this isn’t an account we check regularly) with the exact subject “Google Voice Account” - the first 100 will get an account invitation from Google.

How annoying, I signed up with the beta link to be notified probably over a year ago, I am sure others have as well. But a bunch of random tech crunch people get invites instead of the people who signed up so long ago?

Transcripted voice mail? I wonder how well that will work out (looks good in the screenshots on techchrunch but are those real). Next step would be to do to this for ordinary phone calls as well and integrate them with Gmail, so you'd have a "Phone Calls" link like you have "Chats", with gmail search being able to find those.

That might be awesome for a business though perhaps unfcomfortably transparent.

That would be most likely be illegal in many states so I wouldn't hold my breath.

These people http://www.spinvox.com/ do exactly that. The answer is that it works quite well, but maybe not well enough to rely upon. It struggles with people's names, jargon and noisy environments as you might imagine. Also there's been a few occasions where it missed a vital word and changed the whole sense of the message "Hi, I'm calling to let you know I'm going to be at the station tonight as planned" - missing a NOT. Ooops.

Does anyone familiar with the service know how the Google Voice number you're assigned works with long distance providers? I've been using my cell phone as my primary phone for a long time now and get free (domestic) long distance but if someone who pays extra for long distance tries to call my Google Voice number would it be considered long distance even if they're local to me?

Oh man, I have a GrandCentral account from right before the acquisition. My number gets a lot of voicemails from collections agencies. For a while I had it forwarded to my office number, and something in the process must have confused their autodialers, because I'd get at least one dead call a week.

I never thought to sell the account on eBay!

I'm wondering if it's worth trying, or if I'll get scammed... does anyone have experience with this?

My favorite feature of GrandCentral is that you listen in while the voicemail is being recorded and then jump in at any moment.

any word on how to port existing grandcentral account to google voice ? - i wish i could delete this now.. but i see a big upgrade me link now.. last night was not there sorry

anyone come across instructions for upgrading a grand central account to a google voice account yet?

Really need a /ignore techcrunch.com article filter for HN.

Yeah, I know it displays here on the HTML page displayed in my browser, but it doesn't show in my RSS reader (Google Reader).

This was a useful, informative article. TechCrunch writes a lot of shitty things. This wasn't one of them.

I'm fine with TechCrunch rants, but unless you've got something interesting to say beyond "I dislike TechCrunch," save it, ignore the article, and move on.

I send the HN rss feed through Yahoo Pipes to add the url of the link to the text.

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=zFbbu_cK3RGfhLcgn0...

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