Systems Consciousness

So I finally got Wave. And a few weeks later, so did most of my friends. Wave’s cool, but I still don’t get notifications in any other medium–email, text, etc. I need to know when I get a Wave in another system so that I can go and respond to it. I already have 20 other accounts to check everyday. Wave is so similar to email and text that unless it’s married to one of them through an API, or unless it at least notifies me when I get a new message, it’s pretty useless for communication. It’s still pretty nice for collaborating though. My colleagues and I have used it to draft text on websites and other materials quite efficiently. Maybe a “Save as Google Document” feature is on the way…

Enter Google Voice. I heard about this some months ago, but it never really struck me as useful. I’m highly suspicious of Google, despite their “Don’t be evil” tagline. There’s got to be some evil reason behind hording all of this data. Our emails? Texts? Websites? Now our voices and phone numbers? Oh that’s right, if you sync your contacts with Google Contacts they already have them. So for my personal line? Never! I have no desire to use Google Voice for this. Frankly, I don’t even trust the phone companies with my data, but this may be a necessary breech for now. But for business? Yes! Google Voice has great potential for the independent business person.

Google Voice comes in two tasty varieties: Use your own number or get a new one. If you use your own, your stuck. No additional number for you. If you choose the Red Pill, then you’ll get a new phone number that you can set to ring at any number of phones. It’ll get your voicemail when you don’t answer. It’ll even send your voicemail as text messages. That’s right. Rumor has it, voice to text. Don’t panic yet…

Features for using your own number

• Google voicemail: voicemail like email
• Voicemail transcription: read what your voicemail says
• Custom greetings: vary voicemail greetings by caller
• International calling: low cost calls to the world
• Notifications: read voicemail messages via email or SMS
• Share voicemails: forward, embed, or download voicemails

Features if you get a new Google number

• One number: a single phone number that rings all your phones
• Free SMS: send, receive & store text messages online
• Block calls: send unwanted callers straight to voicemail
• Record calls: record phone calls and store them online
• Conference calls: join several people into a single call
• Screen callers: hear who is calling before you pick up

Here are some videos to wet your appetite. If you have a Voice account, please send me an invite! I applied for an account last week. Now I’m just waiting… and waiting… hitting refresh on my email over and over. Nothing but emails from cute girls. Where are you Google Voice invitation?