After more than a year of invitation-only users for Google Voice, the search giant opened the service to anyone in the U.S. on Tuesday. About a million people currently use the service, but Google said it waited to offer open enrollment until it was confident it could support more traffic.
Google Voice organizes the many voice devices and services a modern user has into a single platform for communications management. With the service, a user can get a single, free phone number that rings in multiple locations — such as a desk phone, a cell phone, or a home phone. Voice mail can be converted into text for reading, and a Voice console allows the user to make calls.
‘Handy While in Class’
The preview, invitation-only phase of Voice began in March 2009, following Google’s acquisition of a company called GrandCentral in July 2007. Google Voice is headed by GrandCentral’s former CEO, Craig Walker.
In May, Google extended the invitation to students. “We’ve heard college students in particular really appreciate getting their voice mail sent to their e-mail, sending free text messages, and reading voice-mail transcriptions rather than listening to messages,” the Voice team’s Jason Toff posted at the time. He added that reading voice mail is “especially handy while in class.”
Since the acquisition, a variety of new features have been added, including a mobile web app, an integrated voice-mail player in Gmail, and the ability to use Voice with an existing number. An existing mobile phone number can now be used, although some features won’t be available. There are reports that Voice will also be integrated into Google Apps, and that the service will evolve into more of a competitor to Skype.
In the service, SMS text messages can be archived and searched, and will appear both in a registered…