What Soft Phones Are You Using?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Let's go on the assumption you don't despise voicemail with the passion of a thousand suns. Unlimited mailbox storage, the option to have it send you an email with the voicemail, a transcript and a text with the transcript.
Even if I liked voicemail, that's some boring stuff. I've had that since 2004 or so. Those are normal business as well as home phone services. Sure, not everyone has them, but people who are interested in Google Voice seem like the type who would have already had them. And even if I loved voicemail, no one else seems to use it much anymore anyway. The need for it has gone down so dramatically over the last ten years that the best voicemail service in the world is still pretty trivial.
A lot of those aren't home phone services. Basic voicemail? Yes. Blocking numbers? Yes. But multiple voicemails, call filtering and blocking from a central panel, etc? Yes, business has had those for some time. In the consumer world those were not around until Google Voice. Or, if you could have multiple voicemails for different, let's call them ring groups, then it would have been a good chunk of change. I have never seen seen that offered on a home user's package. Not even nowadays.
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@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Let's go on the assumption you don't despise voicemail with the passion of a thousand suns. Unlimited mailbox storage, the option to have it send you an email with the voicemail, a transcript and a text with the transcript.
Even if I liked voicemail, that's some boring stuff. I've had that since 2004 or so. Those are normal business as well as home phone services. Sure, not everyone has them, but people who are interested in Google Voice seem like the type who would have already had them. And even if I loved voicemail, no one else seems to use it much anymore anyway. The need for it has gone down so dramatically over the last ten years that the best voicemail service in the world is still pretty trivial.
A lot of those aren't home phone services. Basic voicemail? Yes. Blocking numbers? Yes. But multiple voicemails, call filtering and blocking from a central panel, etc? Yes, business has had those for some time. In the consumer world those were not around until Google Voice. Or, if you could have multiple voicemails for different, let's call them ring groups, then it would have been a good chunk of change. I have never seen seen that offered on a home user's package. Not even nowadays.
Even the most basic services like Vonage have had those for about a decade. And they are a low cost service and an old one.
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@scottalanmiller I'm not trying to sell you to use it. But there seems to be some confusion between the features of Google Voice and the differences of that and your consumer service offerings. As I said, it's not a business service. But it brings business services to the consumer.
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For free. And Vonage is a tiny piece of the market. Most people who have landlines have them through their ISP. Never seen half of what Google Voice does offered via an ISP's phone package.
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@ajstringham said:
@scottalanmiller I'm not trying to sell you to use it. But there seems to be some confusion between the features of Google Voice and the differences of that and your consumer service offerings. As I said, it's not a business service. But it brings business services to the consumer.
I'm sure it is nice. But it really was touted by people as being advanced and amazing. I think part of the problem is that it's promoted through the guise of being a high tech Google service - it makes it sound high tech. But it seems like it is actually more of an overlay to help telephony troglodytes take legacy telephony and move towards common VoIP services (consumer or business.)
That's not a bad thing. It's a good thing thing, people who aren't up on telephony need help. That's great that Google provides that for them. It's just that with Google's name on it and the routes through which they promoted it, it really came across as being something special rather than a bandaid to help those far behind to get closer to where the slightly technical crowd had always been.
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@ajstringham said:
For free. And Vonage is a tiny piece of the market. Most people who have landlines have them through their ISP. Never seen half of what Google Voice does offered via an ISP's phone package.
Well that only kind of makes sense. Google Voice is only a tiny piece of the market too. Vonage and all the services like it might be a small part of the market, but they've been around for a very long time. And Vonage is cheaper than legacy phone systems, so you could think of it as being better than free - it is a negative cost
I understand that lots of people need to overcome being tied to legacy phones, not understanding the market, etc. But my point was not that that wasn't good or needed, but that Google promotes through the "geeky" channels you get the impression that they bring this stuff out for the leading edge of technology users, not the trailing edge.
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Is Google Voice only a legacy service today? I feel like I had heard that they were phasing it out and just grandfathering for people who already had it. I never noticed it become publicly available. I only ever knew it as an "invite only" service and if I search on it, there doesn't seem to be even an info page for it.
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I believe it's being integrated into the Hangouts product. That's their unified communications platform (or at least their attempt at one).
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@Bill-Kindle said:
I believe it's being integrated into the Hangouts product. That's their unified communications platform (or at least their attempt at one).
That explains things. Is that part of Google+? Google's weird online product line is really hard to follow. They constantly add and remove so many services, it is unreasonable to keep up. I can't tell what is still around or not and what does what. They had several things like Voice, Chat, Wave and some others that I can't really remember that all disappeared. I can't figure out what is going on there. Their constant adding and removing services makes me wary to invest time learning about what they have right now, because by the time I try it out, it's gone. Their platforms just aren't stable enough to waste time learning.
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@scottalanmiller You're telling me. That's the one gripe I have with Google. At times they seem to have no clear concise goal and seem to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. Yeah, Hangouts is actually pretty damn cool in concept. Did you know on top of the Chrome RDP feature, you can configure screen sharing and have experience similar to WebEx but with chat, webcam, voice, screen sharing all for free?
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@scottalanmiller Oh and don't forget about that "Knowledge Sharing" platform called Orkut. Utter garbage if you ask me. Lets see, there's another "secret" program called Helpouts, which is similar to Hangouts but allows you to charge random people asking for help in your area of expertise.
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@Bill-Kindle said:
@scottalanmiller You're telling me. That's the one gripe I have with Google. At times they seem to have no clear concise goal and seem to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. Yeah, Hangouts is actually pretty damn cool in concept. Did you know on top of the Chrome RDP feature, you can configure screen sharing and have experience similar to WebEx but with chat, webcam, voice, screen sharing all for free?
That's pretty cool. I knew that they were doing some stuff like that. We have all of that internally through Office 365 so when Google does it we tend to overlook it. I really like a lot of their stuff but so often it seems like they are just testing it and investing our time into it will be a waste.
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@Bill-Kindle said:
@scottalanmiller Oh and don't forget about that "Knowledge Sharing" platform called Orkut. Utter garbage if you ask me. Lets see, there's another "secret" program called Helpouts, which is similar to Hangouts but allows you to charge random people asking for help in your area of expertise.
Too late, I have totally forgotten about both and have no idea what they are. In all seriousness, completely forgot Orkut and don't think that I ever knew Helpouts.
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@scottalanmiller That's why when people ask me about Office365 or Google Apps I try to keep a very very unbiased opinion of both. I'm deep on the Google services personally, would be an ordeal to fully convert because I've had access so long. But I just can't say one is better than the other because for me it comes down to the business processes that a small business has, their comfort level and willingness to "be different or agile". If they want to stick with what's familar, Office365 all the way. If they don't mind taking a walk on the wild side, Google Apps all the way. They don't care, well see the first description
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@scottalanmiller lol, well for your viewing pleasure:
https://helpouts.google.com/pwelcome
I still haven't gotten an invite code. Been on the list since it launched.
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@scottalanmiller and for Google+ Hangouts screen sharing:
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what soft phone are y'all using?
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I was using Zoiper, but I got fed up with it. (of course, I was on the free version). I ended up getting a really nice Jabra Pro cell/desk/soft headset. I haven't launched my soft phone since.
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@Hubtech said:
what soft phone are y'all using?
Linphone
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back on track! I should be a mod
