Fiddling around with Grand Central from Google

As you might see on the sidebar, I've installed a Call Me! button.

This is kind of a mindf***er, really. Google Grand Central assigns me a telephone number (in my Seattle area code even) and if you click the button on my sidebar a 'bot will call you and connect you to the All This Is That voice mailbox. I can access all this from my smartphone or my computer or a a public PC. I chose the direct to voice mail option for calls from this blog (since Pablo Fanque and whatever scurrilous slander he decides to post generates plenty of hate mail.

They claim I have this phone number for life. This one phone number will ring me direct or via voicemail at any or all phones I use --work, home, and cell. I can even switch phones in the middle of a call. And it will call all my phones at the same time, if I choose that option, whichever one you pick up becomes your phone. I'm not explaining this well.

Other cool stuff--if you leave a message, I can post it directly to my blog with one button push. And I can download all the messages as MP3 files. A side benefit is that I can once again phone in voice calls to this blog (which has been defunct for two years). I tested this tonight (see below), but this looks to be interesting technology anyhow...if only for a voicemail box with no public number (and callers have the option of giving no name or number). Obviously I don't totally get it...but it's pretty cool. Or at least it seems like it tonight. Tomorrow morning, it may just seem about as exciting as Friendster.

I kind of stumbled reading this poem, since I'd never read it out loud before (and every time I do, I find several things I want to change because I don't like saying them out loud!). And my phone was fading in and out a bit, since I am in a weak cell area...but it kind of shows a little of what Grand Central can do. So, if you're ever in the mood, call the All This Is That Voicemail Box.




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