Looking for an invite to Google's GrandCentral? The service has been in private beta since Google bought internet telephony company last year. While the private beta label hasn't exactly come off just yet, Google is making it a lot easier for anyone who wants a GrandCentral account to sign up for one.
Today Google posted a little note on Blogger Buzz letting users of the company's Blogger service know that they could sign up for GrandCentral accounts immediately. As far as we can tell, that link should work whether you have a Blogger account or not. But if it doesn't work for you, all you have to do is sign up for a Blogger account. They're free.
Once you have a GrandCentral account, you will be assigned a phone number that you can link with a number of real world phones. Whenever someone calls your GrandCentral number, the call can ring through to your work, home, or cellphones. You can listen to your voicemail from the web. Or you can set rules for how calls from various numbers will be treated.
What's the Blogger connection? You can also use GrandCentral's WebCall feature to add a "Call Me" button to your web page. Visitors can click the button, and GrandCentral will connect their cellphone to your number without ever showing them your phone number. You can either take the call or send all calls directly to voicemail which you can access from the web. You can even post voicemail messages to your blog using GrandCentral's embeddable audio player.
It looks like users of Skype will now be able to get SMS texts of voicemails thanks to a new partnership with Spinvox.
The new service will allow any Skype user to have their voice messages converted to text and sent as an SMS message when they are not located near a PC. It will be launched in English, Spanish, French and German languages at launch.
Spinvox is the originator of the Voice to Screen messaging category. Their service allows voicemail messages to be converted to text in four languages, and currently operating on five continents.
What's GrandCentral? It's a service that lets you receive calls from all your phone numbers on a single phone. You can also combine all of your voice mailboxes into one simple account which you can access over the phone or on the web.
In announcing the acquisition, Google product manager Wesley Chan describes the technology as fitting well "into Google's efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between our users."
Does this mean GrandCentral's technology will be integrated with GTalk? It's not clear just yet, but we wouldn't rule it out. Google promises that service will be uninterrupted for existing customers while GrandCentral's technology is migrated over to Google's servers. In the meantime, Google says a limited number of beta invitations will be available for new customers.
In principle Spinvox is very similar to Jott: it allows you to blog from your mobile phone and send messages to yourself and others, as well as convert your voicemail into a text message you can read on the spot. Here's a rundown of Spinvox's features:
Voicemail: From a caller's standpoint, nothing changes about your voicemail process. After someone leaves a voicemail, however, Spinvox will convert the message into text and automatically send you a text message and email with the transcript of the message. This can be great for messages left while you're in a meeting and can't pick up the phone, or phone calls that come while you're in an area too loud to answer.
Memos: Need to remember to pick up some milk on the way home? The memo option allows you to call and leave a message for yourself that will be sent to your email inbox.
Email: The email option, called "broadcast" by Spinvox, allows you to send the same message to a large group of your contacts at the same time. While Jott sends mass emails or text messages, Broadcast on Spinvox is limited to text messaging contacts.
Blog: The blog client allows you to post blog posts directly from your phone to Blogger, Vox, and LiveJournal blogs. If you have several different users on your blog you can give them all the blog number and allow everyone to post via mobile phone.
Spinvox works with any cell phone or carrier in and can be test driven for free with later pricing based on your usage of the service.
SimulScribe is offering a unique solution for users of voice mail; A way to convert voice mail into readable text.
SimulScribe transcribes voice mails and sends them directly to your mobile device as text or email messages. Its sometimes a hassle to check voicemails and write down notes from messages -- and its so much easier to take a glance at txts that come in -- so what better way than to get your voice messages sent straight to your portable device.
It is a tad pricey though at $9.95 for a bundle of 40 messages. You can try it free for a month to see if you can justify the charge. SimulScribe currently has over 5000 users, and supposedly will announce a deal with a major national carrier in April.
Google has just released a great new version of Google Talk. This new version has all the goodies people have been asking for.
This new feature list includes:
File Transfer - Send unlimited files and folders to contacts. With no restrictions on file size.
Voicemail - If your buddy isn't answering his/her call, leave a message. A voicemail message. And even if your friend doesn't use Google Talk, they can still receive it in a nice little attached audio file.
Music Status - Show what tunes you are currently listening to.
Google Talk is shaping up to be an ultimate player in the IM and VoIP world. They have come a long way since the launch of their first rendition of a barebones instant messenger. MSN Messenger look out!
Ever wish you could call your Backpack account and leave a voicemail? Me neither, but now that someone thought of the idea and cranked out voiceNote for Backpack (beta, of course) - I can't wait to start dialing! To sign up, you simply have to enter your name, email, Backpack URL, the email address of the Backpack page you want these voice messages sent to and up to three phone numbers from which you'll be calling. You then simply dial a specific number to make your call and leave your message. celltell, this service's provider, lists about 7 U.S. numbers in major cities you can call to use this service, but I would imagine that if you have long distance dialing, it shouldn't be a problem no matter where you are in the country. The voiceNotes are added to your specified Backpack page "a few minutes" after your call as small Flash players, complete with export-ability to an MP3 file.
This looks like a fantastic (and unexpected) addition to an already stellar online PIM. If you try it out, feel free to let us know what you think in the comments.
Podcasting portal Odeo recently added a feature that lets people record messages for you on your Odeo page, kind
of like voicemail for the web. What's cooler, though, is that the message recorder can be embedded in any web page, so you can stick it in
a blog post and anyone with a microphone can come along and leave a voice message for you. To use it you'll need an
Odeo account, but people don't need one to leave you a message.
Need to stream your voicemails anywhere in the world? Want an SMS any time you get voicemail in Skype? Well it looks like that API thing is already bearing fruit, because Orb has released a little add-on called V4s, which allows you to sort of integrate some Skype-ability into Orb-powered PC's.
All you do is install V4s on your Orb-enabled machine at home and (after setting up Skype naturally) you can access your voicemail from any web-enabled device by going to Orb's site (the my.orb.com site). Just like getting your music, video, and all those other personal media items... The add-on is free, Skype is free, Orb is totally worth the price— what have you got to lose?
Looking for an invite to Google's GrandCentral? The service has been in private beta since Google bought internet telephony company last year. While the private beta label hasn't exactly come off just yet, Google is making it a lot easier for anyone who wants a GrandCentral account to sign up for one.
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