Google Voice
Using
You need to sign up for Google Voice .
I signed up last week, received my invite email, and snagged a great Google Voice number. The most basic, boss thing about Google Voice? Google Voice lets you pick one number that’ll ring all your phones: your Blackberry, iPhone, home phone, that home-no-one-knows-about phone, and your office. But it gets better than that: Google Voice screens all your calls discretely, lets you set up different outgoing messages for different callers (“Maybe you’ll get lucky and I’ll call you back, toots,” to “You’ve reach the office of Me, Incorporated,” and even “The number you have dialed has been disconnected”).
But the best part of Google Voice? Voicemail. All of your messages are automatically transcribed, emailed or texted to you, and saved online, forever. You can mark voicemail as spam and block callers that way. Or you can listen into your voicemail messages live, and interrupt a message if the call’s worthy of your immediate attention.
How much trouble is Google Voice going to help you avoid?
I’ll give you my new number — it’s good — but since I can so carefully screen my calls now, I’m not sure I’d pick up.
You know, because you give such good voicemail.
