In a nutshell, here's the scoop ?
Google Voice + Cell Phone = ?Holy smokes?-kind of awesomeness.





Here's the longer version ?
Google just announced today the upcoming debut of Google Voice, an expanded version of GrandCentral, which the company acquired 20 months ago.

My jaw dropped when I saw the list of goodies that awaits users:

• A unified number for receiving all calls (no matter landline or mobile) that rings all of a user's phones ? home, office and cell ? at the same time
• Phone routing (which rings only certain phones depending on who calls)
• Custom voice mail greetings (which plays different messages for different callers)
• Online voice mail box (that looks like the familiar Gmail interface)
• Voice mail transcription
• Call blocking and screening (i.e., listening to messages in real time while recording)
• Conferencing
• MIDCALL phone switching (calls started with one phone can be resumed on another)
• Free calls within the U.S. (not including carrier minutes)
• Low-cost international calling from any phone (dial into a number to get dialtone, then dial phone number)
• Online text message filing. And if you?re one of those pro road warriors with multiple phones, GV sends texts to whichever one you want ? or all of them.
• And there's a Google Voice Mobile site, so users can manage their messages or change settings via web-enabled cell phones

Some of these features may be available on services like Spinvox, but you have to pay for them there. Google Voice is totally free, except for international calling, which is cheap. Interestingly enough, that's actually what rankled the telecommunications industry ? the free domestic and cheapo international calls. (Have you ever dialed Europe on your cell? Yowza. Not cheap, and not a whole lot better on certain landline packages.)

Skype is great for some of this, and when I?m at my computer, it will probably still get a lot of play. But at first blush, it can't compare to all these bells and whistles.

Personally, I can't wait to have customized outgoing messages, transcribed voice mails or real-time call screening. And the ability to save texts is just awesome. (Too bad I didn't have this before. I was forced to delete the texts my husband sent me when we were dating. Huge bummer. They were like the modern equivalent of love letters, and now they?re gone.)

For now, only current GrandCentral users ? who errantly thought Google had forgotten about them ? are able to sign up for Google Voice. The rest of us will have to wait until they open up registration in a few weeks.

Sign up here and the company will let you know when you can register. (Line forms behind me.)





EDITED TO ADD: There's a curious little link in Google Voice Help about ?Record Calls,? but it's not an active page. No idea what's up with that, but I?ll let you know if it pans out as anything good.