I got my Google Voice invite this morning, and it kind of rocks my world. I hate voicemail, because you can't save, sort, reference, or read it, and Voice solves that by automatically transcribing and emailing it to you. On top of that, it lets me keep one number for all my phones, which will come in handy in what's likely to be a pretty mobile, if not international, next few years.
Gmail changed my email world, and it looks like Voice will do the same thing for the way I call people. What Microsoft doesn't get about this whole Bing thing is that we don't use Google because it nails every query, we use it because everything else Google does rocks our world, and their search engine tends to be one click away from whatever service you're using. This video I posted on Naked's blog last week sums it all up:
One last note for lucky invite recipients outside of America: when you first get your invite, DO NOT click it right away. Google won't let people with IP addresses outside of the US activate, so you need to proxy stateside before you sign up. I used Hotspot Shield, a dummyproof one-click solution, and it worked without a hitch.
And yes, that number in the title is my new official contact number. There was one instance of "hella" available in the 415 area code, and I snatched it up with a quickness (the more boring version is (415) 754-3552.
