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Well, I'm a little of group 1 and 2 I guess. Sure they are going to take my data. But it's not like it's safe anyways. Not only that, but I'm not that interesting. I'm the the middle of two states right now with landlines and cell phones so it's really useful to have people be able to get a hold of me without trying to figure out what state I am in. Not only that, but it's been a great tool to record my friend's drunk calls at 3 am and play it back to them a week later and the gigglefits that ensue. Plus, it's nice to be able to store important voicemails, unlike my crummy cell phone voicemail that deletes it after 2 weeks no matter what. Sometimes, it's nice to be able to save a really nice voicemail or important one for future reference, plus, then if you don't catch the voicemail because they talk too fast, you can just rewind a little and listen again, rather then wait until the end, hit repeat, and try and wait for that place again.

It's free?! Sounds good to me. However I've got Skype too and never use that, so maybe it won't take off in our house.

Who has multiple phone numbers? Seriously I've been using a single number for about four years now. I can see business and personnal but beyond that like 'home and cell', well that's just dumb.

It makes me both curious and reluctant to watch how big a company is allowed to become if they want to.
Lots of power, politics and money is involved if someone intends to use all this information and money available for these kinds of purposes - both for good as well as bad intentions.
Should such a small leading group be allowed to affect so many others throughout almost the whole world, even despite the nature of their intentions being good or bad?

It could lead to a great result , a catastrophy and anything in between. Who knows.

Maybe the Google guys are really only wanting to do good from their hearts? Maybe they are not? Perhaps they are not even 100% aware of the end goal and changes it as times passes and surrounding circumstances arises?
No matter what their puropse is, how will it affect the rest of the world?

Google must have a superbig aim to reach something, and they seem to need more than lots of money and information to reach their goal/-s. They are already making more money than they can possibly spend, so why do they need to earn even more - to do what, to grow into what?
When in the future much of the information is passing through them and they are becoming a worldly big bank with huge amounts of money flowing through them at the same time (means more power than the oil industry and other things have today), what happens then?

Whatever it is, it may change into one or the other intentions over time. Since it is a commercial company it will mean new owners and leaders the longer it exists.
The unknown factor and lack of knowledge about the future successors of Google (and of corse of any other company as well), could lead to many changes of the company´s policies, aims and goals, and also what goes on behind the scenes.
I mean - even if it is good intented, looks good and fun and is really promising today - what happens in the future? Is it at all controllable to stay at a non-intrusive doorstep?

I guess we all just need to use our own individual discrimination regarding giving or not giving Google (and of course also others) our privacy and routine behaviour patterns, and make our individual choices from this - if we are able to use and express them. Not all are able to - and many are unknowingly heardfollowers or just do not care.

Do companies need many people to sign up on features like Google Voice and similar, or do they need just a small percentage of the internet and phone users over the world to reach their goals?
I believe the latter, since only one part requires to have signed up, if this person or company is writing/receiving an e-mail or makes/gets a phonecall - Google will then of course reach the other part too with ads or get info about this/these persons during the connection established - even if the other part do not want to.
It is possible, but maybe they will have policies to avoid it, maybe they won´t.

But if they would reach X% to sign up, they will thus automatically get private info from probably >5-10-20 times more peoples behaviour, since we all have communications with our friends and with companies and local services and much more.
The signed-up person´s personal web of connections is thus also captured by Google (or any other company with similar sign-up features) - without the other part is even asked to give permission to it.
Maybe it is not like this now, but it could become so in the future.

About Google Voice - do you think the call or answering machine service will in near or future time suddenly be interrupted by a bellsound and a following audio advertisement?
If Google is also developing (or will buy an existing) realtime audio worddetection algorithm, that will detect certain words or phrases during a conversation, it will mean it could possibly trigger a realtime or pre-recorded (local/regional/national/global ...) commercial from one or more of Google´s advertisers or third party partners.

Hmm ....

I do not want to be disturbed by either audio or text ads everytime I do something in my life - when walking in the streets, watching TV. listening to radio, surfing the net, or having phone conversations and more.

If it goes on like this then maybe there are no more visible stars to enjoy when looking up into the sky, but instead advertisements projected in the clouds or stratosphere covering the otherwise beautiful and relaxing sky and universe, once a company knows about the most common interest of a targeted specific group of people living just under it.
No balance of peace and mind to be found anywhere?

Yet, it is really interesting and sometimes cool to view the pace of tecnhological achievements, and some may turn out very good and helpful.
But the pace also sometimes goes faster than the actual need of it.
The economic and technical flows sometimes superseeds the use of good discrimination, and the pace and fruits seems to live a life of its own sometimes.

Big things that affects a large group of beings on a global or national scale, needs to be carefully examined before allowed uncontrolled growth - or policies and aims of its use either - now or in the future when new leaders will run either the company or the national politics and perhaps take it somewhere else than first intended - or perhaps it will change into something not so good.

So I will not try Google Voice, although I need many of these services for lots of reasons, both privately and as a runner of my own company.
I use Google AdWords myself, but do not want to overdo it on the expense of others personal freedom.

But I want to be able to live privately too when I want to - I am not a walking advertising space.

All the best to you all! :-D

Thanks WebProWorld for a great place to read tips and learn more about marketing, discussions around ethics, and mutual fellowship and more. :-D

There is no such thing as a free service in voice communication, as Skype in Skype Out has proved. Relaying from one company to another, return links, telephone central usage, etc. are all billed by telecom companies. So wha's new? Most probably Google will recover the costs and make a nice profit by means of minimal obtrusive advertisement, as it has implemented in YouTube

I just wonder who the heck needs nowadays a phone anymore? Let just do and let images make Your advertising. You must not phone anyone to do business- that's past my friends.

MWGBC

I would use this only when an online form or some type of application requires a phone number. Example: "Free" give-aways, especially from the internet marketing community. Once they have your phone number the upsell is inevitable. I am on one particular "guru's" list that refuses to stop calling me. Every time some expensive high paying commission scheme comes along, I get a phone call for it. They're worse than high pressure car salesmen.

its cool
i would definetly go for it if it were to be free
man google rocks

I'm glad google is coming out with this product since it sounds good for people with a lot of voice mails, and many tel. numbers.

Good job! Google.

Why is everyone so concerned with privacy? What exactly will Google monitor? Your phone conversations, text messages, voicemail? What about Verizon or any other phone carrier, they have access too, how come you trust them more?
And what about Google mail, nobody complains about that but technically they can also monitor your e-mails... (same goes with Microsoft and Yahoo mails).

Google is a big and trusted company, I'm sure they have better things to do than listen to your phone conversations. I don't know the exact benefits of Google Voice but if I decide to use it, I'm not gonna be concerned with privacy. If you want something to be private - don't talk about it!