Dialing International: Who Needs Mobile Minutes?

April 24, 2009

An editorial in the VOIP News this week postulated that Google Voice might be in the position to eliminate overseas cell phone calling once the service is launched this spring. Why? Because GV does two things that neither Skype nor mobile phones can do by themselves: with a Google Voice dialer on your smartphone, you can dial out of the country cheaply, and you can do it without a computer.

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The article describes how the smartphone-based GV dialers work:

Users typically choose a name from the built-in address book, or dial manually. The dialer first instructs the handset to dial a VoIP gateway, then tells the gateway what number to call. It makes VoIP dialing as easy as regular cellular calling. Users pay for cellular airtime plus the cheap VoIP rates if the call is international.

In other words, Google Voice will be able to “spoof” the people you call into thinking that your mobile phone is using your Google Voice phone number. That means that when they call you back, they won’t try to use your real mobile number–that’d cause confusion. The whole process will stay within GV service, which like Skype will charge pennies on the dollar for overseas calls. All you’ll need is your 3G data connection or WiFi.

Of course, there’s a complication: the only dialers available right now, GVMobile and VoiceCentral, are for iPhone only. But more are coming, and for other platforms as well. (Some kind of baked-in functionality for Google Android phones seems like a logical next step, too.)

And with new radio spectrum opening up for all kinds of uses–including mobile broadband–there’s no telling where the service could go from there. If Google executes its Voice strategy to its logical end, they could end up with both a smartphone and a service that don’t rely on the big four domestic carriers at all. That would mean no more 2-year cell contracts or $100-a-month service plans.

And wouldn’t that be nice?

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Posted by chrisdannen

…and now more apps

April 13, 2009

GVdialer is a new Google Voice app for multiple platforms, including Android, Blackberry and iPhone. The coolest feature, as described in a brief review in The Boy Genius Report, allows you to pre-set how you use Google Voice when you call. You can use Google Voice for all outgoing calls; for outgoing international calls; for outgoing domestic calls; or “ask me on every call”. This flexibility is great for those who have various calling plans, whose phones are owned by their employers (and therefore should sometimes show calls as coming from the corporate-supplied mobile number) and so on.

This not only solves the problem of having to dial twice – first to GV, then your number – it allows you to be smart and flexible about how your calls appear to recipients.

With Google Voice’s ability to switch calls from one phone to the next, you can initiate calls on your cell phone, taking advantage of all the cool features on it and apps such as this one. Then you can easily switch the call (if made through GV) to your desk phone to save your cell battery, get better call quality on a desk phone – or even to use your now-freed cell phone to send and receive text messages during boring conference calls. Of course, you’d never do such an awful thing, would you?

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Posted by Bud Man

iPhone apps for Google Voice

April 11, 2009

iPhone users love applications for their devices. There have been 1 billion app store downloads already (across an estimated 20 million iPhones sold to date); the Facebook app alone has been downloaded nearly 7 million times.

Now there are not one, but two iPhone apps for Google Voice – before it even launches. Both eliminate the need to dial in to Google Voice separately before making a call, which was the single biggest usability hassle.

The one with the early lead seems to be GV Voice (see it on YouTube); also strong, and with legacy GrandCentral support for slow upgraders, is VoiceCentral (read a comparative review).

These apps, no doubt to be echoed on Blackberry etc., make up a big early boost for Google Voice. iPhone users are always looking for cool things to do with their phones – and GV is, after all, most attractive to multi-phone users. (Though the cost savings and control features may eventually snag even people still on a single land line.) Some will no doubt be lured into Google Voice by the new apps, rather than the other way around.

Estimates of how many people will use Google Voice vary wildly; but with 20 million iPhone owners, most in the US, and two cool new GV iPhone apps, it’s easy to see Google Voice getting to 1 million users very quickly.

From there, it should grow rapidly – “You don’t have X yet?!?” is a very powerful viral marketing tool. Everyone who complains about juggling multiple phones, or the cost of a call, or a phone ringing during dinner, or who misses a message – things that have happened to just about everyone, at some time or another – can expect to hear: “You don’t have Google Voice yet?” from some of the million-plus Google Voice + iPhone users.

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Posted by Bud Man

What Can PhoneTag Teach Us about Google Voice?

April 6, 2009

One of the most-touted features of Google Voice is its purported ability to transcribe voicemail, allowing users to funnel all their inbound communication into their email inbox. The technology is unproven; voice recognition software is infamously unreliable. But one Web company, PhoneTag, is already doing voicemail transcription–and not only that, they’re charging a monthly fee. What can Google bring to the market that PhoneTag can’t?

PhoneTag works like this: set up your account with any phone on any carrier, and all your voicemails will be transcribed and sent to your email inbox. It doesn’t delete or alter the voicemails themselves, so you can always go back and listen if you need to. For that privilege, you pay either per message ($0.95), in batches of 40 messages ($10, plus more for each additional message), or for an unlimited account, which is $30 a month. (Most of us probably average more than one voicemail a day, so the only real viable plan is the unlimited one.)

PhoneTag has a few proprietary advantages: it’ll email you an audio file of the voicemail so you don’t have to dial in, and it also works with your Skype account, so it can transcribe those voicemails, too. You can also trade up to PhoneTag’s corporate service if you think the rest of your team might benefit from the technology.

But PhoneTag’s major weakness is that it still relies upon your existing phone number. That might not seem like such a liability at first, but consider what PhoneTag does: it turns your phone number into another conduit for your email. Most people are sparing when it comes to divulging their real phone number, but begin treating it like an email address, and you find yourself more profligate. Suddenly, you’re getting more calls and voicemails than you ever meant to, which then translates into more email traffic. Sure, it probably won’t create more work for you, but it will give you the impression that you’re being inundated.

As a GrandCentral user, I got my faux phone number–GC lets you pick an area code and generates one for free–about a year ago. I stuck it on my business card, and set it up to ring my cell and office phone, and used GC’s Web interface to listen to my voicemails. Six months later, my cell phone was dying every six hours from the call volume, and my office phone was disrupting everyone within a three-desk radius. Figuring that GC could help me screen and filter, I didn’t just give out my work email address to contacts, as I used to–I went ahead and gave them my number, too. I didn’t have any more stories to write–I’m a journalist–or any more sources to interview. But it felt like I was working at the White House press office. Alone.

PhoneTag’s other liability is naturally its monthly cost, but that fee does get you something that Google surely won’t provide: a customer service hotline. Phone communication, especially customer service-related, is anathema to Google, but they might have to rethink that strategy now that millions will soon be depending on Google Voice to handle their phone traffic. After all, they’re running a telephony service, and billing people (at least for long-distance calls); an 800 number would be nice. Hear that, Google?

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Posted by chrisdannen

The New York Times disses voicemail

April 4, 2009

I hate voice mail. Whenever I have to check voice messages, I feel like I’m entering a kind of Twilight Zone, a different dimension of frustration where I lose all control of time.

It gets to where I get annoyed with people who leave me voice mail. I’m far from the only person who feels this way – and far from the only person who has left an announcement on my phone with one form or another of, “Please send me e-mail”.

When I calm down enough to think about it, the reasons are clear. Voice mail is the worst of two worlds – the e-mail world and the phone call world. In the e-mail world, you don’t get to interact immediately with the other person; you and they can’t interrupt with a question, ask for details or pick up subtle vocal shadings. And in the phone call world, the other person can go on and on – and, I guess, I can too. The voice mail world is missing interaction, like the e-mail world, and is far worse in the tendency of some people (you know who you are) to go on and on – like the phone call world, only worse. Voice mail is also a hassle to check, much harder than e-mail or (when the other person is available when you need them) a phone call.

The New York Times has now noted these frustrations, analyzed them – and cited Google Voice as an answer. In an article titled You’ve Got Voice Mail, but Do You Care?, Jill Colvin hits several nails right on the head. Via interviews, she even puts some numbers on the inefficiency of voice mail:

 >According to her calculation, it takes 7 to 10 steps to check a voice mail message versus zero to 3 for an e-mail.

>Mr. Siminoff estimates that textual voice messaging is about 15 to 20 times faster than traditional voice mail.

The article then mentions Google Voice as a solution:

>Most important for the voice-mail-averse, Google Voice will also transcribe voice mails at no cost.

Consumers can be expected to go for Google Voice instinctively, inherently aware of these frustrations. Businesses, with a much greater need to cost-justify their decisions and to find a way to weigh convenience against, for instance, security concerns, can reprise the calculations above for themselves and their own specific situations.

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Posted by Bud Man