We've all seen it in technology over the years...somebody takes functionality that's been around for a long time, and finds a way to make it so easy to use that it changes the world.  Think of computer menus, touch screens, and search algorithms - and what happened when we all first saw and used:

• The Apple Macintosh User Interface
• The iPhone
• The Google Search Page

They all took what had been fairly powerful, but complex, processes and made them approachable.  In so doing, they created huge markets.  Really simple is really sensational when it comes to technology penetration.  Now, I'm adding a fourth item to my personal list of "this is what it always should have been like" - Google Voice. 

I've been experimenting with this system for a couple of weeks now, and it is rapidly becoming indispensible.  Over the years, I've looked at (and we as a firm have looked at) numerous attempts at some sort of "unified messaging" concept.  Every time before this, they fell flat.  Either the technology wasn't there yet, or they were too complex to use, or they were frightfully expensive, or something.  Google Voice has overcome all these problems.

To summarize, to get Google Voice, you first have to have a Gmail account, and then sign up and get in the queue. Once invited into the fold, here's what you do and here's what you get (for FREE, mind you):

You choose a new phone number (hint, make sure it is not only in your area code, but also in your local calling area). You then can give out that number as your new central contact point, and here's what you get in return:

• You can forward all calls to that number to one, or multiple, other number(s) simultaneously (think your cell phone, your office desk line, etc.)  So, if someone calls your Google Voice number, all those other phones ring. The first one you pick up gets connected. Never miss a key call because the person called the one phone you were not monitoring right then.
• The caller has already been asked to identify themselves, so you can screen the call (if they aren't already in your caller ID file) and either press 1 to accept or let it roll to Google voicemail.

Now here's the part that hooked me:

• Google Voice will send an audio file of that voicemail to your Gmail account, and if you've set it up this way, any other email account, too (for me, my OVP email).  To date, this has been FAR more reliable than the Outlook plug-in we've tried to make work for years.
• As part of that forwarding event, Google Voice will also do a voice-to-text translation of the message, so you can see it in your email without listening to it.  To date, those translations have been remarkably accurate.
• Finally, Google Voice will send an SMS message to your cell phone with the voice to-text-version. It is the voice-to-text part of the whole process that took this from "interesting" to "compelling."

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