IT, Communications, google
Should You Sign Up for Google Voice? Xconomy Readers Share Their Beta Experiences
Wade Roush 6/22/09
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they’re still mainly dabbling, or haven’t yet figured out how to make the best use of the service.
I’ve had my own Google Voice account since writing my review in mid-March, but like several of Xconomy’s readers, I haven’t used it much. The reason is the same one some readers cite: The high switching costs. I’ve changed residential and office phone numbers several times in the last few years, and I dread having to inconvenience everyone in my life yet again by making them switch to my Google Voice number. Then there’s the hassle of printing new business cards and updating my account records with everyone from Amazon to the electric company.
I realize that this is a paradox of sorts. In the long run, the great thing about your Google Voice number is that it’s the last new one you’ll ever have to give out (for as long as Google exists, anyway). Still, there’s that last hump to get over. Since adopting Google Voice is optional—unlike switching your home land line number when you move between area codes, for example—I think the switching hassle, together with the power-user requirement, may cause many potential users to balk.
But there’s some chance that the number-switching problem will go away by the time Google Voice goes public. TechCrunch reported last week, based on information from an unnamed source inside Google, that the company is working on “number portability” for Google Voice—meaning that when you sign up for the service, you could reassign your existing cell or home number to your Google Voice account, rather than getting a brand-new number from Google. That would significantly reduce the switching costs that go with adopting Google Voice. (But it wouldn’t fix the outgoing-call and caller ID problems, except for the times when you’re calling from the device that uses your Google Voice number.)
So—if you’ve been hearing about Google Voice and wondering whether you should sign up for it when it becomes available to the general public, you may want to glance through the following comments from the Xconomy Google Voice account winners. Needless to say, this is not a scientific survey. There’s a lot of self-selection going on here, since by definition, all of these comments are from people who immediately responded to Xconomy’s free Google Voice account offer back in March. And the people who dislike Google Voice probably aren’t as keen to reply to my feedback request as its fans and evangelists.
(A big thank you, by the way, to everyone who wrote in. Many of you said it would okay to quote you by name, but I decided not to use names with these comments, since quite a few people asked to remain anonymous. I’ve edited the comments for clarity.)
How much have you used your Google Voice account?
“I have used it a little thus far. Since I am a remote person my mobile/office phone is the same. However that will be changing by this summer and the convenience of one number is ideal.”
“About once a week.”
“I use my Google Voice account almost every day.”
“Daily.”
“I have not found a good way to utilize the technology.”
“It’s interesting. I will use it eventually. I am not an early adopter type generally. At this point I like to play with it.” …Next Page »
Wade Roush is Xconomy's chief correspondent. You can e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com, call him at (617) 252-7323, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wroush.
6/22/09 9:31 am
I tried to give my GV number to selected folks as my phone number. Old contacts never quit calling cell number I’ve had since 1995. New contacts eventually caught cell number and called it directly. Total failure. Need to exchange GV number to cell phone and old cell phone number to GV. Then GV would work as envisioned. So far, dont see a way of doing that.
Success path for me: put GV on do not disturb. Changed cell phone voice mail to point to GV rather than carrier’s voice mail. Cell phone voice mails go to GV, get transcribed and sent to email account. Pretty good tool at this point. I now use it daily. Maybe less use than Google hoped, but perfect for me.
6/22/09 10:32 am
Wade, you and your readers may be interested in Skydeck’s mashup with Google Voice:
http://skydeck.com/blog/announcements/google-voice-mashup
Skydeck addresses some of the biggest problems that you bring up. You don’t need to change your number and you don’t need to change the way you make phone calls. Right now we support Blackberry, Android, and Windows Mobile phones.
Best
Jason
6/22/09 11:38 am
Wow, I wish I had scooped up one of the beta invites… I’m really anxious to try it out and have tons of uses for it as I’ve been living over in Europe for a while now and need an easier way to manage the numbers i have in the US & over here…. if anyone still has a beta invite that they didn’t activate, i’d love to put it to use! You can email me at ryan.haugarth at gmail.. I’d really appreciate it!
6/22/09 7:22 pm
i missed out on that annoucement=\. Can someone please invite me to the program or send me invite that not activate. appreciate for your help. email = speedtechnologies at yahoo.com
6/22/09 10:24 pm
I’ve been an avid Google Voice user from the day I signed up. Having used Bill Warner’s Wildfire for 15 years, I was used to the “ultimate” phone concierge with an incredible female receptionist’s voice to boot. There’s no question that the transcription feature is one of the more compelling capabilities. While it’s available with other services (SimulScribe), having it integrated out of the box (phone) is a real benefit. Truthfully, I have few, if any complaints. More than anything, I have lots of requests — like — since Google Voice has my contact list, there ought to be a way for Google Voice to initiate a call for me without my remembering the phone number through voice recognition or prompting with the first few letters of the name of the person I am calling. This was one of the beauties of Wildfire. Actually, the Google Voice designers ought to touch base with Rich Miner who was at Wildfire and ought to be able to help blend the best of both worlds! Thanks again for the beta. I love it!
6/23/09 3:18 pm
I wasn’t lucky enough to get a beta invite but from what I’ve read it doesn’t look like GV works as a main business number.
The issue I have with Google Voice is there can’t be multiple extensions associated with the account so for a small business there is no option for pick ext. 1 for Joe, 2 for Amy, etc. There are two of us at my office and we need our own voicemails. Am I missing something or am I correct on my assumption?
I’m looking into Toktumi, http://www.toktumi.com/WhyToktumi.aspx
I haven’t spoken with anyone that has used them but the feature set looks great on paper. Anyone have any experience with them? I’m thinking of giving them a try but I’d like to hear some feedback before I go down the number porting path. Thanks.
6/23/09 4:05 pm
Hi Wade:
Thanks for an excellent article on the pros and cons of Google Voice. I’m in the online phone business myself and we are all watching GV very carefully as they have the potential to eat our lunch! Some will be in trouble (e.g. SpinVox and PhoneTag sell voicemail transcription for a fee – that’s dead), others will survive by focusing on different niches. My company Toktumi may be of interest to some of your readers if they contemplate using GV for a business.
Okay here comes the shameless promotion but I wanted to share this with your readers as I thought some might find it helpful – particularly those that have decided to strike out on their own and run their own business.
Toktumi is like a professional-grade version of Google Voice, designed for businesses that don’t want to trust their calls to a free service, who need service level guarantees and live customer support. In additional to GV-like features, we offer business features like auto-attendant, 800 numbers, a PC softphone, fax, desktop sharing, and a new mobile app called Line2 launching on the iPhone in a few weeks, similar to GV Mobile.
There’s a free 30 day trial available at the toktumi website if people want to check us out.
6/24/09 7:03 pm
I have a Google Voice number. I don’t use it. Think I’ve used it once or twice since I got it over a year ago. You get what you pay for, in this case you pay nothing.
7/11/09 5:21 pm
Good, GV is awsome,i got invitation from my friend..signed it up..working great i need to learn more about it ..one solution and one call for multiple destination where ever you are there google voice will follow..dont miss it..who ever has just sign it and enjoy the service..soon world will be a local call…Thanx Rajuvamuda
7/23/09 1:26 am
Been using Grand Central before it was turned into Google Voice. I was a bit shy about giving it out to contacts as I didn’t fully understand the power but I made the switch this spring when they renamed the service. Good stuff, one of my favorite new toys this year other than the iPhone.