Google Voice - Integrated into Search

For those of us who have been waiting (and wondering) what Google had in store for GrandCentral after the 2007 acquisition, the service has just been rebranded and significantly upgraded to Google Voice. Google Voice – which had been in beta since the acquisition and is still closed to new users - is a *smart number* with voicemail, conferencing, call control, call announce, etc (often called Voice 2.0.) Alerts are sent to SMS or email with voicemail files, notifications and more. Google Voice is also a softphone (aka click to talk), a web or mobile application used to make free domestic outbound calls (similar to Skype and others). The Google Voice softphone optionally connects callers to Goog411 – Google’s directory assistance application.

Google Voice has a very cool, but not unique, call announce feature (AccessLine has had a call announce for several years). If your Google Voice *smart* phone number receives a call from a caller with a blocked caller ID, or a caller that is not in your address book, the caller must record an announcement. The called party (you) can accept or reject the call. You can also listen in on the voice mail (and interrupt to pick-up a call sent to voicemail).

I can see a few directions where Google may be headed with Google Voice. Using Goog411 or Google Voice, searchers can announce their interest when calling merchants in the Google search results (“I need a cab and want to pay by credit card.”) Google can then route this call to the merchant available to accept the call. Integrating Google Voice into the mobile local search results offers users a powerful new option to connect with and communicate with merchants. For example, a consumer searching for a plumber in San Jose may call a business listed in the Google search results (from the web, mobile or Goog411), if that business is not available (busy, no answer, on vacation) – Google Voice can offer the caller a connection to Goog411 without the caller hanging up on the first call. That would be a very convenient way for the caller to find what they are looking for and for Google to route the caller to a ready, willing and able advertiser.

There are also mobile features for Google Voice and I can see interesting applications for Android – the Google-backed mobile OS. I’ll leave that for another post.