I have been an avid Google fan for quite some time now. Hmm, I could hear you saying, what’s strange with that? Yeah, I know many of us are Google-freaks and can’t imagine a net-life without Google. Google, the web-behemoth, has emphatically changed the way we use the Internet. I really admire the Google’s evolution from a mere search engine to the ubiquitous Internet-commodity. With that said, I have done with bragging about Google. Let me get into what I wanted to tell you.
Of late, Google has acquired GrandCentral communication, a company providing intriguing telephony management services. Here, I am posting what I have just read and known from different blogs and news sources and not from any of my experience using GrandCentral as the service has not yet been offered in India. Unlucky me, don’t know how long I need to wait for it.
Let me start with the gist of the offerings, a phone number for your lifetime. It’s not uncommon for us to change our phone numbers. Every time you change your phone number, you are in a hassle of letting your acquaintances know your new phone number. You would ask how GrandCentral would be of help in this. Yep, it’s pretty much helpful. With GrandCentral, you could get a phone number for your lifetime. The service lets you to manage all your phones via an online web interface.
For example, you could have phone number at Home, a different number at office and a mobile number. Instead of giving all three numbers to your contacts, you just give out your GrandCentral number, and everyone can reach you on the same number regardless of how often you move, change jobs or service providers. Furthermore, through the online interface, you are given the feature that could be used to set ring some, all, or none of the phones based on who is calling you.
Amongst the rich feature set, the one intrigued me much is the ListenIn. You could think of email paradigm as an analogy to this feature. In email system, you get to know the subject even before you actually reading the content of an email, though there is no hard-rule to mandate the subject’s relevant with its content. This feature works the same way; it lets you hear the reason why someone is calling you before answering the call. How it works? The application prompts the caller to give out the reason for the call and announces you the same, since by now you know the reason, you can either answer or reject or send that to voice mailbox. What Voice mails eh? Yeah I know it’s not widely accepted by the phone users in India, and we are least bothered about to give heed to voice mail. Are not we? Ok I’m done with this post. Stay tuned for the next post 
