cultureblog

Sometime last year, I heard some rumblings on the web about a cool new online phone service called Grand Central (www.grandcentral.com). The lure was that you get your very own personal phone number and get to keep it for life. You could setup personal voicemail and have your calls forwarded to any other number. At the time, the rumblings I was hearing were complaints from the existing user base because Grand Central had reorganized and broken their prime directive – that you keep your number for life. They were arbitrarily reassigning new phone numbers to many of their loyal users. The dust settled and shortly thereafter a new story hit the wire that Google had acquired Grand Central. During this period I had signed up for my own account, not quite sure how I would use it, but needing it none-the-less because I am a sponge for the launch of anything new that is technology related. The other reason I thought I might find it useful was that I had moved to San Diego from Seattle and had kept my Seattle phone number. In a world where almost everyone is now on a cell phone and long distance calling is a non-issue, I didn’t see a reason to change, but occasionally have a local number can definitely be handy with business.

Now fast forward several months to this week when Google announced the re-launch of the Grand Central service as Google Voice. As an existing Grand Central user, I was happily surprised to receive an invite to upgrade my account. Google has kept everything that was good about Grand Central and turbo charged it with a few new features. Among my favorites are call routing – forwarding phones to different numbers based on who is calling; sending, receiving and storing SMS messages – independent of your cell phone provider; voicemail transcripts – Google translates your voicemails into emails; listen to voicemail, store and forward voicemail online; and several more very cool features.

Here is a run-down of the new service courtesy of the Google Voice website:

Google number – One number for all your calls and SMS

• Call screening – Announce and screen callers
• Listen in – Listen before taking a call
• Block calls – Keep unwanted callers at bay
• SMS – Send, receive, and store SMS
• Place calls – Call US numbers for free
• Taking calls – Answer on any of your phones
• Phone routing – Phones ring based on who calls
• Forwarding phones – Add phones and decide which ring

Google voicemail – Voicemail as easy as email, with transcripts

• Voicemail transcripts – Read what your voicemail says
• Listen to voicemail – Check online or from your phone
• Notifications – Receive voicemails via email or SMS
• Personalize greeting – Vary greetings by caller
• Share voicemail – Forward or download voicemails

Voice features – More cool things you can do with Google Voice

• Conference calling – Join people into a single call
• Call record – Record calls and store them online
• Call switch – Switch phones during a call
• Mobile site – View your inbox from your mobile
• GOOG-411 – Check directory assistance
• Manage groups – Set preferences by group

There are several other service providers out there that already provide some of these features but they require paid subscriptions and many don’t include all of the services in one nice package. I previously subscribed to services such as GotVoice to have my voicemails recorded as MP3 files and emailed to me, which I really liked, but I didn’t have enough call volume to really justify the monthly fees.

I’m excited about the possibilities of using Google Voice. Now the only thing I’m faced with is figuring out how to wedge the new Google Voice service into my existing workflow so I can take advantage of the cool upgrades. Visual voicemail with my iPhone is light years ahead of the old dialup voicemail, but it is very nice to just read the transcript via email or text while in or on your way to a meeting.

There’s no official word yet on when the service will open up for all new subscribers, but the Google website says “soon”.

Setting up your digital office can be expensive. Many new businesses fall into the trap of thinking they have to setup a complete office environment to appear legitimate to their clients. One of the major startup expenses is the office phone system. Setting up a business line from the local telephone company can cost upwards of a $100 or more with taxes and fees as well as installation costs lumped on, and that’s just for a single line. Setting up a multiple extension phone system with voicemail and fax capabilities is an entirely different investment and can end up being several hundreds of dollars in phone equipment and extension routing software.

It’s important to spend your often limited resources on useful technology and functional things that actually serve a useful purpose to your startup business. That’s where voice-over IP (VOIP) or internet based telephone systems come in. At Durrani, technology is our business, so we are always looking for ways to implement new technologies that help our business run more efficiently.

We examined several services and decided upon RingCentral.com.With RingCentral.com our basic monthly subscription gives us up to 5 configurable extensions, a unified voice and fax line, voicemail on each extension, an automated attendant (a virtual operator that greets callers and allows them to select an extension or leave voice messages) and the ability to forward incoming calls to several other numbers, such as a cell phone, in sequential order or simultaneously. The service also includes a PC application that resides on your desktop so you can answer calls (with a headset) and monitor voicemail and fax messages. Each person with an extension can completely configure their own services down to the hours they want their phone to ring and how many rings it should ring for. Take for example my extension #101. I have it setup to ring on my office desktop first, then rollover to my cell phone. If I don’t pick up the call on either my desktop or cell phone, it rolls over to my RingCentral.com voicemail. I then get an email and optional text message notifying me of the new voicemail.

The system also automatically detects incoming faxes and converts them to your choice of document format, such as a PDF, TIFF, or JPG. And the fax gets emailed to your email account. You can also setup your desktop computer to automatically send any incoming faxes directly to an office printer. Faxes can also be directly sent to an individual extension number.

Any optional toll free numbers associated to your account are completely integrated to your system. Inbound calls can be routed to any extension or office phone. We have several 800 numbers (which only run about $5 per line per month) and we have them routed to separate office phones with unique voicemail systems to take messages and deliver them to designated staff.

RingCentral.com lets you manage your office and client communications virtually from everywhere. Not only is it significantly less expensive then traditional phone systems, it’s smarter and more convenient. All for less then $50 a month.

There are many other features we won’t get into here, but you can get your own free 30 day trial by clicking the banner below. Once you try RingCentral.com you won’t look back.

A friend of mine sent me a photo he took today with his iphone while he was working at a coffee shop in San Diego. The photo shows a nice clean table, a quaint coffee with heart-shaped foam from the barista, a Mac laptop and mouse.

The quintessential life of a freelance web developer.

In contrast, I too snapped a photo with my iPhone of my desk and my work environment. Nothing in the photo was added or moved. This was my desk at that exact moment.

The quintessential life of a web developer in an office.

A picture is truly worth a thousand words.

Life as a Freelancer

Life in an Office