I don’t like talking on the phone, and I don’t like voice mail. The only people I talk to on the phone are my immediate family, and the (thankfully very rare) work emergency. Everything else is recruiters and spam, which are usually the same thing, and which I just ignore. (See my RingCentral notes from a little while back.)
I got my Google Voice number last week. It’s (Boston’s main area code)-615-YOAV. I’ve been testing it a little bit since that time, and so far, so good.
The interface is clean, fast, and very much like GMail. Nicely done.
The transcription of voice mail to email is awesome. It means I never have to check voice mail again. This, by itself, is a feature I’ve wanted for a long time: years, in fact. But I never wanted to pay for it, nor go through a cumbersome setup. It’s something I’d gladly use for free.
It’s even smart enough so that when someone says Yoav in a clearly-pronounced way, the transcription is “me” instead of “Yoav.” That’s kind of cute.
The call forwarding just works, setup was trivial and quick. The integration with my GMail contacts is awesome, automatic, painless.
The fact that messages are NOT saved as voice mail on my phone, only an SMS preview, is genius. I don’t even need to dial in to delete them, and I don’t need to worry about capacity.
I’ve just started using this, and I haven’t converted everything or everyone yet. It will take a long time. But I’m loving it so far.
Yoav Shapira's Personal Blog 