Google Voice Going After Students

Google is employing the time tested strategy of appealing to young, impressionable minds by announcing today that any students interested in the service need only submit their email address and receive a Google Voice (GV) invite within 24 hours.  Non-students can also request invites, but personal experience suggests that it may take months before invites are processed.  How do they confirm the requesters are students?  Their email must end in “.edu”.

Google Voice, as the name implies, is the invitation only “voice” service from Google.  While not entirely a voice service, GV attempts to be the “one number” that a customer will ever need.  Incoming calls are handled by GV and distributed as the customer wants (e.g. ring home and cell at the same time, if incoming number is family, route only to cell, etc.), and if you switch any of your numbers, you only need to go into GV settings and update the information.  And it comes with a suite of other services, including:

• SMS messages via email
• Block unwanted callers
• Transcribed voicemail online
• Low cost international calls
• Custom greetings for callers

I suggest that it isn’t a voice service, exactly, because it cannot originate (or terminate except for voice mail) calls.  To make an outgoing call with GV, you first select the number of the device you want to use, you then enter the number you wish to dial.  It then “magically” connects the two devices together so the conversation can begin.  This is GV today, but it has been suggested that Google has been testing desktop VoIP clients, so I wouldn’t be shocked to see it available on desktops and Android phones in the near future.

Here’s a little more on Google Voice:

Related posts:

1. Google Voice Open to All
2. Google Voice Enables Number Porting
3. Google Voice: Big Plans for 2010
4. Google Voice Offers Number Portability, User Stats
5. Google Voice Desktop App Preview