So, Grand Central was acquired by Google voice. You ask what is Google Voice.

In this post I am going to talk about Google voice and the various things it can accomplish, maybe I will also mention what really sucks in Google Voice also. This service is INVITE ONLY, if you would like a invite drop a comment with your email under this post and I will send you an invite.

1. Send Quick SMS to people works for Canada and USA currently by simply clicking the SMS button. (Converts voicemail to TEXT which can be delivered to Email or SMS.

2. One Number, one number will ring all your phones currently they only have USA numbers I hope they bring in some Canadian numbers.

3. Block Calls, send unwanted call directly to the voicemail (comes in handy to add people you do not wish to talk too)

4. Record Calls, I really like this one this is great for those Phone Job interviews or maybe just to record something important!

If you simply want to CALL/SMS someone just hit one of the Google Voice buttons that are conveniently located on the left side of the panel when you first log in.

(hit Call and SMS) to initiate a Call or SMS  once you are logged into Google Voice, they have made it this simple!

The Grand Central interface was different Google Voice remapped the interface to resemble Gmail  take a look.

You got your Inbox: Voicemail, SMS, Recorded, Placed, Received, Missed, and your credit.

Here is one thing i dislike about Google Voice that was changed from Grand Central (You could forward your US number on Grand Central to a Canadian number, for example your Fido! cell phone and have people call you on the US number and have your Cell Phone/Home Phone ring) this feature no longer works.

You get this neet messages when you try to set it up:

( I hope Google supports forwarding to Canadian numbers soon!)

Now let's look at some of the options in Google Voice:

We click on Settings and we are taken into the following options:

Phones:

• We got your Google Voice number and the number it forwards too. We can add more forwarding numbers in the Phones tab.

Voicemail & SMS:

• Voicemail Greeting, we can change the greeting to either System Standard or record our own greeting here.
• Recorded Name, a name when callers hear when they call you (default is: "The Subscriber") this can be changed you can record your own.
• Voicemail Notifications, setup EMAIL forwarding here to have your voicemail forwarded to email or multiple email addresses or SMS forwarding to have voicemail to forward to your cellphone.
• SMS Forwarding, now if someone SMS your Google Voice number, you will have SMS's forwarded to your cellphone
• Voicemail PIN: from here you can set your voicemail password
• Voicemail Transcripts: This is neet your voicemail with Google voice recognition will convert Voice-to-Text! so now if someone leaves a voicemail you get it in TEXT, Google claims this feature is not perfect yet but they are working on it!

Calls:

• Call Screening (When an unknown caller calls, Google Voice will ask to state their name before they are able to get through this is neet!). Screen all unknown callers or caller with private/blocked id only.
• Call Presentation (When someone calls you you can either hit 1 to accept or deny the call etc it's the opening presentation when someone calls)
• Caller ID, this can be setup to display the caller's ID or your own ID when someone calls (this is useful for forwarding, so you know someone is calling your Google Voice number when the calls gets forwarded because you set it up as to show your own google voice ID)
• Do Not Disturb, don't want any calls? simply put a check box on the Do Not Disturb!

Groups:

• Make groups and have different options for each group.

Call Widgets:

• Place widgets on any webpage so users can call you with a click of a button, this is kind of like the "Skype" widget
• Billing is where you add credit for outgoing call (rate to Canada is now $0!, but I was unable to call a Canadian number because International forwarding doesn't work!

And pretty much, this is a quick review of Google Voice. I think if they want this thing to take off they need to bring a flat plan for Canada, Mexico, USA. or allow free forwarding to those numbers and calling that would really give Google Voice an edge. Right now if you are in Canada this service kinda sucks, was much better when it was Grand Central!

Oh, did I mention Google Voice comes pre-installed on the NexusOne!

One more thing I must mention Google Voice has a plugin for Firefox, Chrome where you can click a button and initiate a call.
Check the post below for more info: