Google Voice for everyone

Tuesday, June 22, 2010 | 10:07 AM

(Cross-posted with the Google Voice Blog)

A little over a year ago, we released an early preview of Google Voice, our web-based platform for managing your communications. We introduced one number to ring all your phones, voicemail that works like email, free calls and text messages to the U.S. and Canada, low-priced international calls and more—the only catch was you had to request and receive an invite to try it out. Today, after lots of testing and tweaking, we’re excited to open up Google Voice to the public, no invitation required.

Over the past year, we’ve introduced a mobile web app, an integrated voicemail player in Gmail, the ability to use Google Voice with your existing number and more. Over a million of you are now actively using Google Voice, and many of the features released over the past year (like SMS to email and our Chrome extension) came as a result of your suggestions, so thanks!

If you haven’t yet tried Google Voice, we can’t wait for you to try it out and let us know what you think. Check out our revamped features page to learn about everything Google Voice can do, and if you haven’t seen it yet, this video provides a good overview in less than two minutes:



We’re proud of the progress we’ve made with Google Voice over the last few years, and we’re still just scratching the surface of what’s possible when you combine your regular phone service with the latest web technology. It’s even more amazing to think about how far communication has come over the last couple hundred years. To put things in context, we created this infographic to visualize some recent history of human communication and how Google Voice uses the web to help people communicate in more ways than ever before (click the image for a larger version):



Update 10:55 am: Just to clarify, though we've opened up sign-ups, Google Voice is still limited to everyone in the U.S. for now.

46 comments:

Unknown said...

OK, but when are we gonna get Google Voice in Europe?

Fabien said...

everyone = no european ?
You make a mistake in the title ...

Unknown said...

You can text to Canada... How about texting FROM Canada? It's kind of sad how long it takes for any cool tech to reach Canada...

Westoya said...

It's sad that "everyone" doesn't include Canadians.

San Miguel said...

Everyone in the world??? LMAO so the USA is everyone ? :D funny you guys :D

philridout said...

Come on Google guys. Not 'Everyone' lives in North America!

jezmck said...

Everyone. But not outside the US.
Why must you Americans always forget about the other 92% of the planet?

Unknown said...

Sorry everyone, if you want to be part of the "Modern History of Human Communication" you have to move to a place like Wichita. Or perhaps Tuscaloosa.

Such is the penalty for living in 'Old Europe' or any of the other region within the other 93% of the world.

Geoff Flarity said...

Sounds awesome, but it's not exactly for everyone if it's US only! I know, it's just a title. But this sort of American-centrism alienates your user's in the rest of world.

Johannes said...

Totally agreed. Open up for Europa and Canada and get happy customers from everywhere.

Unknown said...

For everyone? Everyone in the States! Epic fail!

Diego said...

I see... Here in Spain we are nobody.....

Mark said...

When are we going to get number portability?

Bubba Bert said...

An American Company doing business in America First. Seems pretty normal to me. Personally, I'd never do business with a country OR union that just had to let their government fingers run afoul. Class action lawsuit? Pull out of the EU. Let them develop their own shoddy internet applications. Oh hold it, I'm france - I GIVE UP. Remember, Socialism is alive and well in the EU.

CTM said...

Bad choice for the title. +1 disappointed that came here thinking that you would announce google voice outside US/Canada.

Importante note: US is not Everyone.

大笨熊 said...

天国悲剧

cr0vax said...

@Bubba Bert : WTF are you saying ?

The problem is NOT that Google Voice is only available in the US. It's that in that post, Google consider USA as "everyone" which is obviously false and insulting.

"Socialism is alive and well in the EU" oh god ... Please let those democracies just decide what economic system they wish to live in and don't forget US are actualy borrowing money from Europe ...

oh and ... remember, the statue of liberty is a gift from France (and I won't tell about the independance war ...)

Ahmed Eltawil said...

The title is completely misleading. Reading this blog post was actually disappointing.

Richard said...

Everyone inthe USA is different from saying Everyone. I'm tired of Google privileging the US market over everywhere else. You might be a US company listed in NY, but you're primarily and internet company. You can't release products in this way, it just doesn't make sense when the Internet is a de-territorializing force, not the opposite.

Andrew said...

absolutely miusleading post by Google Voice team. I guess for the sake of making PR statement, and not really thinking about the customers. at least of those outside US. You just pissed off the majority of your loyal clientèle. Shame on you Google for such statements.. you should call it - Free Voice Service for everyone in US. The rest of the world - shut up.

Jeff Raymond said...

Does the Blackberry app no longer exist?

Pat Furrie said...

Perhaps the title should have a caveat... but take solace in the fact that phone systems (in general) are way better most other countries than the U.S. (as well as health care and education, etc)... so let us just have the Google Voice thing for a little bit.

Rent Compass said...

Nicely done guys. It is a shame that the iPhone native app was not approved, but the web app is definitely a good workaround.

Good job!

Andy Bryant said...

I read the headline... then the article... then the subnote. Doh!

Dudes... Come one... bring it to Europe!

César said...

Google Voice for everyone? LOL
There are much more countries than USA & Canada out there.

Derbyshire said...

Come on Google - say what's keeping this technology from the rest of the planet & then we might understand!

Love,

92% of the world!

M said...

GOOD JOB !!!
Just wondring... when your excellency are expecting to share this technology with your northern sweety Canadians neighbor?

David said...

Finally Google Voice has come to the rest of the world! No, hang on, wait this was written by an American.

Eduardo Loyola said...

I received a Google Invitation a year ago and I have recently signed up in the service using a US proxy. As a result of this, I got a US number and, throug a SIP provider I can receive phone calls in Spain made to my US phone number.

It's really not very useful, but I can check it works very well.

Some american friends can call me for free and I receive their phone calls in my iPhone.

Any other use for Spanish???

I would like to be able to use Google Voice in Spain with its full features.

Thanks.

Monson said...

Poor choice on the title. My heart was crushed when I read that it is still only available in the US.

Paul said...

Does this mean the many serious bugs have finally been squashed, many of which I was experiencing just last week? Such as new voice mail messages which don't show up as new when calling the access # to retrieve them? Such as the number of "new" messages varying wildly (sometimes by dozens) when dialing in to the access #? Such as perfectly audible messages coming through with "no transcript available?" Such as not reliably sending a caller to Voice mail when dialing a Google Voice #? Etc, etc.

Simon Gallouet said...

any idea when it will be available in HK?

Kimnaii said...

We maybe are fans but we are not stupid. You will need to admit at some stage that this amazing service that is Google Voice will not be deployed outside the US and probably, if the Canadians are lucky, not outside of North America.
If that is the case indeed, please remember that you are communicating on the Internet. We (everyone as you put it) can see your posts. And we (everyone as you put it) can be frustrated in NOT getting the same service as everyone (as you put it).

Boys and Girls: The world does not turn around the US of A. There are other countries out there you know? You should know better Google…you keep on rambling about how you have Google in so many languages and so many Google domains, and localized search, and yadiya-diya… Start paying attention when you communicate to the world. You guys like stats right? The world has 195 countries (with 192 at the U.N.). The United Stated of America is 0.51% of that. You will agree that this hardly represents every one.

So next time you communicate and you want to positively excite the masses; use the right combination of words. You are all very educated at Google so you should know better.

Now: Coming back to Google Voice. Why don’t you come clean with every one (the actual world this time) and tell us what is holding up the deployment of GVoice outside the US. You guys are all bout being open and all … so what’s the gossip? Is it the telcos that are making it difficult? Is it the Law? Is it the infrastructure? The Politics? Do you actually see this being deployed outside the US…and if so, what is your forecast?

Unknown said...

Here's another idea: let's post the services we use internationally instead of Google Voice.

I'm in the UK where I and my business are very happy customers of CloudNet.

http://www.cloudnetuk.com/

Their technology covers what Google Voice + VOIP would do. But more importantly they have outstanding customer service. Highly recommended.

Unknown said...

I am dissapointed and saddened that even Mount View forgets there is life outside the USA...

Hello.. from an INDIAN Nexus One user!

Sailesh Rao - please do a quick ref check to see if you guys are still on Sergey and Larry's rolls

Garafraxa said...

My heart skipped a beat upon reading the title... and sank after reading the article.

The optimist in me wants to believe that the removal of the requirement for invitations was a necessary step in the WORLDWIDE roll-out of Google Voice. Maybe the headline wasn't a slip-up... maybe Google was looking for a way to generate extra hype to build anticipation for the WORLDWIDE release...? Kind of an "evil" way to do it, though.

Google Voice in CANADA, please!

Adam said...

I'm sorry, but I have to dispute the Web Telephony kicks-in time. I was using VoIP in '96 with my Dad on his Aptiva in Windows & OS/2, and me on OS/2. Worked exceedingly well for dial-up, and a dang 486. Funny how nowadays the requirements are so high because the OSes need so much to do it.

https://www.research.ibm.com/haifa/projects/software/icphone.html

That's what we used, which was then migrated to this:

http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/phone4java

Which was retired in 2001. I still enjoy VoIP and it is my daily communication tool.

Adam said...

Oh yeah, and it was GrandCentral before the buyout, which has been a boon to my productivity. You should put that date on there instead of 2010.

Simon said...

PLEASE bring it to CANADA. PLEASE!
thank you

Tony Daws said...

Thought this was good news for Canada, sorely disappointing but still eager to sign up the first chance this is extended to Canada! This is some amazing work in an area that really needs some attention like this!

Kenneth said...

You guys really make some cool stuff, but at some point you need to sit down and think about whether you want to be a global company or a US company. Right now you seem to want to be a global company, but you are not there yet. Google Voice, Nexus one, Android market, Google Maps navigation - the list if non-global products and services are getting bigger everyday.

Rosiroo said...

Sounds good guys but fail title. We are the internet. Everyone does not equal USA.

Unknown said...

We've been hearing about how Voice will be in Canada "shortly" for ages now. Seriously, whats the hold up. If there's a good reason, perhaps you'd be kind enough to fill everyone in on what the holdup is. Right now we can only assume its because you're slacking.

Brett said...

Yeah canada is getting increasingly neglected by google. is it a regulatory issue with the government or business bodies, or is it just that canada is too small a market to waste effort for support?

Steve R said...

Agree with most of the other posters! Don't forget us Europeans. We're people too. And there's a lot of us

James Anderson said...

I love you google! Your motto too! Was so lovely to receive an invite to Google Voice but unfortunately it is not available in New Zealand. Please consider a trial in NZ! We have an oppressive duopoly controlling our telecommunications and even the government has tried on many occasions to force competition and unbundling of infrastructure