"We’ve kept all the things people like about GrandCentral and added new features like transcripts, SMS, international calling, and conference calling," says Google on the GrandCentral site. "If you are a GrandCentral user, over the next few days you will be prompted to upgrade to Google Voice."

Google Voice allows you to get transcripts of your voicemail as well as archive and search SMS text messages you send and receive. Users can also make cheap international calls and easily access Goog-411 directory assistance.

With Google Voice, you can get a Google number for calls and SMS, and that comes with call screening, the ability to listen before taking a call, call blocking, phone routing and forwarding, Google Voicemail, conference calling, call recording, mobile features, and more. You can check out all the features here.

 Hello In Its Last Days

"Hello will be shut down on May 15th," admits a message on Hello.com.  It continues, "We originally embarked on a mission to make photo sharing easier and more fun with Hello.  We plan to keep carrying that torch in new projects to come."

It looks like Google isn’t fully retiring from photo sharing, then, and with any luck, no layoffs are taking place.  Perhaps Hello wasn’t too profitable, or maybe Google has something else in mind for the domain name.

One possibility: Hello.com would be perfect for the GrandCentral phone service.  Some social project might work, too (and Google’s shown all sorts of interest in them lately).  Google just needs to remain of the irony that’s evident when things named "Hello" fail.

It looks like we’re stuck with another one of those "time will tell" situations.  Anyway, a hat tip for the current story goes to Philipp Lenssen.

Your Search Advisor blogger Andrew Miller cited some of the questions and answers Johnston addressed during the event. Among them, JotSpot will feature significantly in Google’s software as a service strategy:

Google Sites: Scheduled to be launched sometime next year (2008), Google Sites will expand upon the Google Page Creator already offered within Apps. Based on JotSpot collaboration tools, Sites will allow business to set up intranets, project management tracking, customer extranets, and any number of custom sites based on multi-user collaboration.

Johnston also noted the integration of GrandCentral, a Google acquisition that centralizes multiple phones into one number, into the forthcoming Google Sites. He declined to cite a timetable, but said it was a “huge priority” for Google.

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To be fair, GrandCentral is giving its customers an array of options when it comes to getting a new phone number.  GrandCentral’s also making the adjustment in the name of quality, and the service was clearly marked as a beta version.  Still, Judi Sohn wrote, “I knew what I was doing when I put such faith in a beta service, but then again how long has Gmail been in beta?  How would you feel if Google changed your email address on you, beta or not?”

Sohn received notice of the number change on August 17th, by the way.  The change will go into effect on the 25th, which gives her just one week to alert all business and personal contacts.  Other GrandCentral customers, such as Troy Schneider, were given an equal (lack of) time to respond.

Google can’t be blamed for this, though, and neither, from the looks of it, can GrandCentral.  “There are 434 users affected by this change and unfortunately we would have had the same issue had Google not acquired GrandCentral,” wrote Vincent Paquet, a co-founder of GrandCentral, in an email to Om Malik.  “One of our pre-acquisition underlying carriers stops providing services to certain areas and this does affect a few of our users.”

These users appear to be clustered in Virginia – the only affected area codes that I’ve seen are 703 and 434.

"We’re pleased to announce that we have acquired GrandCentral Communications, a company that provides services for managing your voice communications. GrandCentral is an innovative service that lets users integrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into one account, which can be accessed from the web. We think GrandCentral’s technology fits well into Google’s efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between our users."

During the transition Google will issue a limited number of invitations for users to register for a GrandCentral Beta account. Currently use is limited to users with a US based telephone number. Previous users will continue to have uninterrupted access to this service.

While terms of the deal have not yet been revealed, according to TechCrunch, they are speculating that Google forked over around $50 million for the acquisition. While on the surface, this may seem like a considerable sum, when compared to recent purchases such as YouTube ($1.65 Billion), and DoubleClick ($3.1 Billion), this is really pocket change for the internet search giant.

Competitor Skpye was purchased by auction giant eBay for $2.6 Billion back in 2005, and has been a fixture on the web since it was founded back in 2002. Compared to the $2.6 Billion paid by eBay, the suspected $50 Million for Google’s GrandCentral purchase sounds like a huge bargain. GrandCentral’s beta version was originally just released in September of 2006.

It will be interesting to see how Google integrates GrandCentral into its existing products as it is certainly the natural progression for GTalk, Google’s instant messenger.C

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GrandCentral‘s business centers around various voice communications services like phone number and voice mail integration, and voice mail Web access.

These are complementary services to already-established phone services. For example, a person with multiple phone numbers can set them all to ring when certain people call.

Google says GrandCentral’s technology was a nice fit for the company’s goal to enhance "the collaborative exchange of information between our users."

"We’re really excited to welcome the GrandCentral team to Google," said Chan. "While we’re moving their technology over to Google’s network, a limited number of invitations will be available to register for a GrandCentral beta account."

It is interesting the forays Google has made into the voice communications world recently. This acquisitions comes at a time when the company began to offer free directory assistance services, has tested Google Phonebook, has had disagreements with telecom giants like AT&T, and is rumored to be interested in the 700 MHz wireless spectrum about to come to auction.  

Again, this is a rumor.  But that concept sounds kind of Google-y, doesn’t it?  After all, the search engine company is already in love with the idea of universal Google Accounts, and it has been known to toy with phone-related services.  Also, it’s been a little while since Google bought out anybody, so you know the corporation is itching to spend some money.

Skeptics should also note that Michael Arrington broke the news, and although the TechCrunch guru is usually right, anyway, he may have a special “in” where GrandCentral is concerned; one week ago, GrandCentral founder and CEO Craig Walker wrote, “Michael, you are the MAN,” on the GrandCentral Blog after Arrington complimented the company in a Newsweek story.

If we assume that this deal is real, then, Arrington writes, “I’m speculating on where Google will use GrandCentral, but the synergies with Gmail and GTalk are fairly obvious and could be the next step in Google’s competition with Skype and other instant messaging platforms.”

And there’s some very nifty stuff down that theoretical road.  Yet in terms of more immediate effects, alarm:clock thinks consumers may see some savings.  “Just last week, we thought of subscribing to Grand Central,” the article begins, but, in reference to the possible Google acquisition, notes, “[t]ime and again when the oligopoly buys such services, prices fall or go to free.  So we are going to sit on the sidelines and see what happens.”

In a sense, I suppose we’ll all be doing that as we wait to hear confirmation of the Google-GrandCentral deal.