I was ambivalent about the utility of Grand Central when I signed up for my free account last year; I’ve got one phone that I use, and the voicemail in your inbox feature was kinda whatevs.
But then Google announced the relaunch of Grand Central as Google Voice; this was the feature made me super-excited:
Billing and International Calls: Making international calls
To make international calls at very low rates, just dial your Google number, press 2 and call anywhere in the world. You can also make calls directly from the Google Voice website.
Since their prices are Skype-competitive, it means I can finally untether myself from my computer without buying a ridiculous Skype phone and my call quality no longer depends on whatever shitty Internet service I happen to be on (e.g., Time Warner Cable, free city wi-fi).
Now all I need to do is spend the last $2 I have on my Skype account.
Posted on March 20th, 2009
not sure if I like it!!
That’s clever. I wonder how long it will take Skype to adopt that feature?
Probably too long. I’m not particularly confident that eBay and the leadership at Skype are going to drive innovation with their product like this.