Grand Central - Google’s Path to the Cell Phone Market?
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Today I received an invitation to Grand Central, Google’s latest buyout that they announced recently. I had heard of it before, but Google’s buyout piqued my interest. I started the sign up process, where they let you pick an area code (any US area code is allowed), then they provided a list of phone numbers to choose from. After some additional information about myself, and a list of all my phone numbers, I was up and running!
This service is amazing! Phone and voice communications have finally been brought to the web with Grand Central. With Grand Central, I’m given 1 phone number. I can then use that phone number to, depending on who calls me, designate which of my home, work, or cell numbers those people get forwarded to, whether they get to talk to me personally, talk to my voice mail, or just get denied service. I can tell it to screen all blocked calls, or certain groups to force them to provide a voice name, which it will tell me when I answer the phone. It will use bayesian-type filtering to detect “spam calls” which you can tell it what to do with those.
I can also choose a custom tone that all or only specific users get. I chose a New York guy who talks to you as you’re waiting to talk to me - he patiently says to hold on, that I’m going to pick up soon. They also provide some other pretty funny ones. I can tell it to forward all my voice mail to my e-mail address, or cell phone (via text message), or both. They also provide me with an e-mail address (my phone number@grandcentral.com) that I can give to others that forwards to my personal e-mail.
The most powerful thing to this is the contact list. I imagine this will be tied to GMail’s contact list in the future, but you can set up contacts, and groups those contacts are assigned to. Integration with gmail is definitely going to happen. I can select any contact, click “call”, and it will dial my phone, then connect me with their phone. No longer do I ever have to tell others to change my phone number - one number, all the time, and it seemlesly points to all my other numbers.
I’ve said it before, but I really think this is just one more step towards Google entering the cell phone market. Google I am betting will some day sell cell phones with all this software on it. It will seamlessly integrate photos with picasaweb, send e-mail and text messages via gmail, and integrate incoming and outgoing calls with Grand Central. Voice mail will integrate with Grand Central. Such a phone will have GPS capabilities, will automatically give directions via Google Maps to the locations you want to go to, and will use AdWords to target users based on the location they are at. Hey, with Google entering Health Care why not let it sync with your Doctors Office or Pharmacy and provide your Medical Health History all for the Doctor to see? All the pieces are slowly coming into place - how long will it be before Google owns the Cell Phone market? Grand Central is just one more piece to this puzzle.
Hey - if you want an invite, let me know and I’ll send one your way.
July 8th, 2007 at 12:09 am
I would love an invite, if you would be so kind…Thanks!
July 8th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
I’ve been desperately seeking an invite forever.
HELP!
July 9th, 2007 at 1:24 am
Well, it turns out I’ve only got one invite left and lots of people wanting it. Hmmm…I’ll have to think of a good way to choose who gets the last invite - any suggestions?
July 9th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
[…] Grand Central - Google’s Path to the Cell Phone Market? […]
July 9th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Well, seems to me like the right thing to do would be to give it to me, since I posted first. But then, I am a bit biased.
Back in the day, when GMail was the new kid on the block and everyone and their mom were clamoring for invites, I just gave them out to the first people that wanted them, regardless of whether or not I knew them/liked them/etc. But this is your thing, do what you will.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:46 am
Well, if that were the case, I would have given it out to family already.
I’ve already had several requests before I even posted this.
July 10th, 2007 at 11:16 am
You should be ashamed for offering it on your blog then!
I mean, “Hey - if you want an invite, let me know and I’ll send one your way” makes it sound pretty certain about the possibility of getting one. Now I am going to cry. :’(
July 10th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
I made the mention before I knew I only had 5, I apologize. Now it just brings more traffic to the site.
Besides, I’m enjoying torturing you. 
July 10th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
I like all the smiley faces in this thread.
:-D 
July 11th, 2007 at 10:09 am
If you have another grand central invite, please send it my way. Thank you!
July 11th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Want an invite? Participate here and I pretty much guarantee you one:
http://www.jessestay.com/articles/2007/07/11/grandcentral-invites/
July 18th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Would appreciate you sending an invitation my way. Thanks!
July 18th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Would appreciate you sending an invitation my way. Thanks!
July 21st, 2007 at 3:40 pm
I’m the Executive Consultant of an IT Consulting company in Central New Jersey. I reviewed this thoroughly for a client last weekend. I found the services of GrandCentral to be either redundant or frivolous and the overhead to setup and support it to be absolutely insane. Read my very through review:
http://www.the-digital-life.com/2007/07/21/grandcentral-grand-waste-of-time/
July 21st, 2007 at 7:30 pm
The Digital Life, I read your review, and while I agree with some of the points I find it unfair. I am unaware of any service like GrandCentral, and like any new change, some times those changes involve “hassles”. With them having recently been bought out by Google I’m sure things like contacts, etc. will be worked out, and I know there are many more features to come. This is a very preliminary time in a invite-only beta so any “hassles” should be expected. After using it for 1 week I would still recommend this to others. While I may not recommend it to large clients with lots of employees until the beta issues are worked out, this is a service to beat, and will be the future of your phone service.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Uncle,
good review, thanks for posting it, i red’d at the Grand Central site for a number but they have not sent me one yet, reading about it makes me look forward to all those features sound very cool.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Steve,
If you are looking for invites you may find this thread useful - quite a number of people have shared invites there. Please only participate if you’re willing to give back!
http://www.jessestay.com/articles/2007/07/11/grandcentral-invites/
July 24th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Thanks for the heads up uncle_jesse, I already saw your post on that link and added my “me too” and as always I am more than willing to give back to the group.
Thanks again
November 15th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
I think this service looks awesome, can you send me an invite?
November 27th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Hello. You offered to invite people to join/test grandcentral.com. Would you be so kind to send me an invitation? Thank you very much. Jonathan