Google Voicemail is Pretty Cool
After playing around with the Google Voice web app last week, I decided to try a little experiment and disable AT&T's visual voicemail in favor of Google voicemail. The results have been a bit mixed, but overall I think I am pleased. On the upside, I love that when someone leaves a message, I get a transcribed text within moments of the call. The transcription itself is a little wonky, but it generally gives me a decent enough sense of the nature of the call. This is a great feature for me as I often find myself in meetings and it's helpful to be able to grab a glimpse at my messages to determine urgency. As I said, I wish the transcription was better, but for now, it will suffice.
On the downside, there's two ways to access your voicemail: one, you can call your Google Voice number and be entered into the system. It's a bit of a pain when driving, because you have to enter your passcode and waiti for the prompting message to complete. You also get a message via gmail. That would be cool, except that it plays the message like a movie file, and so you can't listen via bluetooth or even by holding the phone to your ear. Instead, you have to use your speaker and listen carefully. Not so good if you have someone else within earshot and don't necessarily want them to hear the message. That, in my opinion, is a major drawback.
Back to the plus side: I love the web client and the fact that your Google Voice integrates seamlessly into Gmail. That is a killer feature because you can easily keep an archive of all calls. I also love the fact that I can easily email important work messages to colleagues.
So, those are my takeaways. As I said overall, a pretty positive experience and worth checking out.
Posted by Howard Solomon
