Comments on: GrandCentral’s “One Number For Life” Not Really

By: GrandCentral To (Finally) Launch As Google Voice. It’s Very, Very Good. – Scattered

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:56:48 +0000

[...] the original service. Outages are a thing of the past, they say, and there won’t be any further reassigning of phone numbers. The new SMS feature means you don’t have to give out your mobile phone separately. And the [...]

By: Harry

Harry — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:45:36 +0000

My Grand Central number is still working too.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:44:12 +0000

Google is the future of telcom. Wow, free phone withinin US and very cheap international calling.
Thanks Google.

By: Grand Central To (Finally) Launch As Google Voice. It’s Very, Very Good.

Grand Central To (Finally) Launch As Google Voice. It’s Very, Very Good. — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 03:53:01 +0000

[...] original service. Outages are a thing of the past, they say, and there won’t be any further reassigning of phone numbers. The new SMS feature means you don’t have to give out your mobile phone separately. And the [...]

By: Counsel

Counsel — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:41:01 +0000

I’d love to call those numbers to see which Google employee picks up the phone

Anyone follow up on those “lost”numbers?

By: Google deja sin teléfono a algunos usuarios

Google deja sin teléfono a algunos usuarios — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:59:53 +0000

[...] se hacían eco de esta situación en TechCrunch y hoy ha salido a la carga el equipo de Gran [...]

By: Josh Fialkoff

Josh Fialkoff — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 01:02:57 +0000

It seems to me that GrandCentral is not innovating much anymore.

Check out this blog post I wrote and let me know what you think…
http://www.nooo...-grand-central/

-Josh

By: GrandCentral Offline: If You Wanna Be A Phone Company, You Can’t Go Dead

GrandCentral Offline: If You Wanna Be A Phone Company, You Can’t Go Dead — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:58:43 +0000

[...] noted problems with the service in the past, but never a general outage. The site is down. The service is down. [...]

By: http://phonenumbersworld.com/

http://phonenumbersworld.com/ — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:31:09 +0000

http://phonenumbersworld.com/...

Keep on the lookout for up to date opinions on this subject….

By: John

John — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:33:45 +0000

Here is a one number you’ll ever need! Call Jott! Sign up! It’s free! 1-877-568-8486

By: Don Zheng

Don Zheng — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:31:19 +0000

You can also get a temporary number too:

http://www.numbr.com/

By: Frank

Frank — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 18:12:15 +0000

Check out “Phone Number Bank.”

http://www.phonenumberbank.com

They let you port them a number to them that they will house (or “bank” if you will), allowing you to REALLY hold on to you number for as long as you want. They ported my number quickly and the service works great.

By: Abby

Abby — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:59:41 +0000

The closest service out there that’s offering a phoen numebr for life (AND enables you to keep a phone number you Already have) is Phone Number Bank: http://www.phonenumberbank.com
The service is provided by a regulated CLEC and is free to the first 1,000 customers – it just launched last month…

By: frankly

frankly — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 03:51:11 +0000

I dont have a business to shill for, so maybe my comment doesnt count. Heh, del, Ken, cristy and nicolas (#s 55, 58, 64, and 66), Im lookin at you!

People are trying to use this time to promote this negtive for G (for their own biz objectives), but i trust your little startups about 10% as much as GOOGle. Remember? They are traded on NASDAQ? You are clueless if you think I, as a GC user, give a flying f$%k that 434 people had an issue with a beta. Printed cards? Are you serious?

By: David Mackey

David Mackey — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 03:38:52 +0000

So, its not as bad as it originally seemed, though I imagine GC will be asking themselves how they can avoid this from re-occurring in the future.

By: nicolas

nicolas — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 01:08:45 +0000

I tried both Callwave and Youmail and ended up keeping Youmail. It was easy and hassle-free.
Once Google bought out GC it was off my radar. I think they’re sketchy as to their intentions and way too encompassing for my taste. I don’t want to live in a Google world!
Btw: my mom loves getting her personal calls and i end up not even picking up the phone anymore because all she wasnts to do is hera my personal calls to her.
Meanwhile i have this: http://login.yo...View.do?id=1111
a my “stop calling me” voicemail

By: rick

rick — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 00:12:38 +0000

yYeah, for “life” is more like : Until you only have a cell phone.
I think some of the other stuff makes it more interesting.
What i don’t get is that you give out a new number for people but you’re still calling from your cell, right?

By: cristy henderbender

cristy henderbender — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 00:06:36 +0000

Patrick,
Why don’t you try YouMail at http://www.youmail.com
Their feature sets include checking voice mail online, indicvidual greetings for anyone that calls, forwarding voicemails via email or pubslishing the vociemail as a link.
They’ve been reliable and they’re free. they’re still in beta but fully functional.
btw: they have great killer pre-recorded greetings for their ditch-a-caller feature. fun stuff

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 23:54:09 +0000

Although “for life” sounds great in marketing circles, implementation is a tough cookie to crack because of all the external extenuating circumstances that a company must rely on for which it has no control in order to maintain the “for life” service. Should be switched to “as long as we can”

Who knows if people will even use a phone number in the future, I sure as hell don’t have one anymore… and I am not alone.

Jon

By: Avner

Avner — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 23:31:05 +0000

I am extremely skeptical of the grandcentral service. I have not really given my number to anyone yet because at the end of the day, I won’t be paying for this service if I would have to buy my number at the end of the beta.

I asked grandcentral what exactly will be free and what won’t. Will the number itself be free forever? This is what they replied with…

”

Dear Avner,

Thank you for contacting us.

I apologize but we do not know what will be part of our Basic (Free) vs Premium Plans at this time. Our team is still working on the pricing and feature structure. Once this is set I am sure we will post it on our site.

”

I’m hoping that they won’t make us pay for the number itself.. Any thoughts on that Michael & team? Do you guys know if the number will be free itself through your sources?

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 23:02:22 +0000

How sorry should we feel for people who take out ads or print business stationery incorporating phone numbers from beta-phase startups? It’s a half-step worse than using an email address given to you by an ISP. Even the Pope might approve of the ensuing Darwinian selection.

People realize that Bad Stuff happens to betas and startups. Despite this, on GigaOM it was reported that Google has offered to pay to re-print at least one GC customer’s business cards. For someone who had paid nothing to use the beta product version of a startup they bought a few weeks ago. That’s generous – no one should slight Google for this issue (plenty of other stuff to nail them on anyway).

By: sujamthe

sujamthe — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:36:56 +0000

Its sad to see such harsh comments based on inaccurate information!

I am a Grandcentral user and want to let you know “its truly one number for life” and I plan to continue to use it.

I am a Techcrunch fan and wish you’ll verify your news before airing it as you reach so many fans like me.

This article misses the truth that the numbers being shifted are for one area code customers. They could have faced this inconvenience even i it was Grandcentral not Google.

But as Google, the slant of the article seems to be get more air!

I have no affiliation with Grandcentral as a company, plan to use them for life. They have been very decent in communicating even for user feedback, so my guess is that they will help transition their small number of users affected well.

I sure would be unhappy if my number vanished. This brings the truth of the interdepent way in which web solutions are built in the new Web2.0 Era.

I haven’t spoken to Grandcentral folks, but guess they lost some numbers through an underlying carrier.

Mike/Duncan: you can help the businesses whose numbers are changing by listing their old number and the new number here on techcrunch.

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:03:14 +0000

Hmm. Beta or not if your slogan is “One number for life” and you can’t provide that then your beta product/service has failed. Perhaps a new slogan is in order. How about “One number for someone else’s life?” I mean SOMEONE dies everyday, right? Hedge your bet better with that one.

By: Ken

Ken — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:59:38 +0000

Giving out a new number to everyone you know is so ridiculous… especially when you have to constantly ask people to continue calling that new number because it’s easier for them to just call you back using the caller ID off your cell phone.

If you want enhanced voicemail for your cell phone similar to GrandCentral, check out YouMail.com and Callwave.com, both great services. For reference, this is an interview with YouMail’s CEO on this morning’s MSNBC TechWatch: http://www.yout...h?v=ET8fxQsWYGo

Cheers!

-Ken
http://www.youmail.com

By: Dustin

Dustin — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:53:27 +0000

All kinds of beta services don’t deliver the services they are supposed to have…because they’re beta.

The problem really isn’t about GrandCentral dropping the numbers, but about people coming to rely so much on a service that is clearly beta that it causes their business problems.

I mean, you have your GrandCentral number on your business cards?!?!

As far as gmail goes, I wouldn’t tear Google a new one if they lost all my email because I realize it’s beta. Which is why I maintain backups of my emails. Relying exclusively on beta products for mission-critical applications is a mistake akin to relying on your hard drive to never die.