De.Coding

So yesterday I got my hands on a closed beta invite for Google Voice, and I’ve had a chance to check it out. Have to say, it is a very cool and interesting way to manage your phone, voicemail, and SMS. Basically, it provides an interface where you can choose a phone number (they let you search by Word or area code), and then provide that phone number, and whenever someone calls it Google will forward that call to the interface of your choice. The reason it’s awesome is because it is very customizable.

Here are some of the many things you can do with Google voice:

• Set up different voicemail greetings for different people
• Set up spam filters for blocking certain calls
• Set up different call forwarding options based on the time of day
• Visual Voicemail: transcribes voicemails left on your account so you can see a text version
• Listen to voicemails while they are being left
• Sends you an email whenever you receive an SMS or voicemail to account of your choice

In addition, Google Voice allows very very cheap international calling through its interface, and the ability to send SMS. Plus, you can add a cool link to your blog so that people can click-to-call you (see right sidebar).

If you are interested in receiving an invite, I’ll see what I can do, just post a comment here with your info.

EDIT: Here’s a screenshot of the homepage to tantalize those without invites

Google Voice Screenshot