Google Rules the World.

So last Friday, I received a very special email inviting me to use Google Voice. I had put my name down on the waitlist a little while back and then promptly forgot about it…so it was a very pleasant surprise. I went ahead, created a new phone number and have been using it ever since. Incidentally, if you are someone who calls me and did not receive an email from me with my new number, shoot me an email and I will give it to you. Still, my old phone number would still work – it just wouldn’t have all of the fancy Google Voice features.

The coolest thing is receiving voicemail as emails or texts. Seriously. If you leave a voicemail, some super-computer will transcribe it and send it to me instantly so I don’t need to bother with listening to my voicemail and writing pertinent information on a post-it that I will then misplace. At first, I thought someone at a call center in India would know all of my business, but I have since learned that it’s actually completely automated.

What has been really fun is to see how well the computer can transcribe different people. Jamie – with his radio voice and perfect enunciation – is 100% accurate. Whereas my beloved mumbling brother-in-law, Scott, is not quite so accurate. See an example transcription from a phone call yesterday:

hey sis it's me just calling to check in i guess i forgot you guys and then i think mister got that so anyway i was just see how you all are doing haven't going to summer and then yada yada…

Now, Google Voice will gray out words it’s not sure about…I will say that most of these words were gray. Scott will blame the fact that he was calling from France and the connection was probably weak. Everything after “check in” and before “yada yada” was just a total mess. When I actually play the message it goes something like this:

Hey sis, it’s me. Just calling to check in. I guess I forgot you guys were gone. I think Maine. I just forgot that. So anyway, I was just seeing how you all are doing…how everything is going for summer yada yada yada...

As I transcribed it myself, I’m realizing that it wasn’t all that far off. I had to listen to it a few times to get it right. Scott speaks really fast. That being said, I cannot wait to see what happens when my dad leaves a message. Hee hee!