Comments on: Skydeck Mashed Up With Google Voice Could Be The Perfect Combination

By: Thomas Payne

Fri, 15 May 2009 16:28:34 +0000

personally, i think that the next big move GV will make is to allow number portability…

By: Deano

Deano — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:56:40 +0000

I really really don’t run into this problem. In fact, there are many pluses to a dual identity scenario, I think most people are familiar with these from having separate work and home numbers… I don’t want my boss to know that ALL my calls go to a single number and I’m weeding them out. I want him to think “huh, he’s not in, I’ll leave a message, and he’ll get back to me on Monday.” Likewise, I don’t want everyone in the company to have what amounts to my private line (when you have a single unified number, then people ARE getting your private line, all the time).

Of course, you can still screen calls, but now you’re making it painfully obvious to someone that you are ignoring them if you don’t pick up/reply quickly.

I get the slant of Leena’s and your points, Jason… But it’s very Valley-centric to be full-on 24/7, and certainly not healthy (perhaps Mike could chime in, I recall a trip to Hawaii…).

Multiple numbers == good!

By: Deano

Deano — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:45:44 +0000

WHICH IS A GOOD THING.

You give your direct line to your BESTEST friends, and your GV number to everyone.

It’s totally misleading, or Leena is a moron about what GV actually does. You aren’t changing your number, you’re adding a number. It’s an add, pure and simple. Adds do require new business cards if you want your non-friends to call you at your GV number. I call that the price of weeding out the phone-chaff.

But the article makes it sound like you need to change your cell, landline, etc numbers. Which is COMPLETE bull.

By: Jason Devitt

Jason Devitt — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:11:46 +0000

Jason from Skydeck here. David and Jack, you can of course use give out Google Voice as an *extra* number – you could use it as your work number or just give it to people that you don’t trust with your cell phone number. But then you can’t use it to track all of your calls, you can’t save your SMS messages, once people have your cell phone number they stop calling your Google Voice number etc.

If you want to use Google Voice as your primary number – which is what Google intends – you run into the problems that Leena describes above, and Skydeck is offering a solution.

By: David Usher

David Usher — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:20:14 +0000

The story is more than misleading, it’s wrong. The GV number does not replace any existing numbers a user may have. You don’t have to give up any numbers, merely add a new one, the GV #.

By: Pishabh Badmaash

Pishabh Badmaash — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:26:13 +0000

I got grandcenteral and nobody call me. I feel lonely

By: Shoeb Ahmed

Shoeb Ahmed — Thu, 14 May 2009 02:58:37 +0000

It depends on a client-server strategy. All these apps run a lightweight client on your phone. Once you go to their website and do whatever, these changes are pushed to the always-on client running in the background on your device which does what is needed, like send a text or modify a contact.

If you have a Windows Mobile phone, check out Dashwire.

By: Dez links que não tive tempo de postar | Jornal Tecnologia

Dez links que não tive tempo de postar | Jornal Tecnologia — Thu, 14 May 2009 02:22:07 +0000

[...] 2. Skydeck misturado com Google Voice [...]

By: Fresh From Twitter today | zu-web.de

Fresh From Twitter today | zu-web.de — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:44:31 +0000

[...] is cool: http://inbflat.net/ ambient beatless youtube mashup mixingSkydeck Google Voice Mashup http://bit.ly/94UELhavent been able to tweet all day stupid internet on my phone hasnt been working getting ready for [...]

By: djyaz

djyaz — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:16:01 +0000

Coldbrew, interesting. I don’t understand how they are sending texts and calls from my phone number without any involvement with my carrier? They must have a VOIP system that can clone/mimic other phone numbers? Is that a commodity offering I can buy? I’ve looked with no luck… can anyone tell me where to look?

By: Steven I Marcus

Wed, 13 May 2009 21:09:17 +0000

google voice gives me free calls from spain to the usa.to cells as well all free with g5 as my call back number..in spain however it sucks as the local phone company charges much more here so call from pstn to sip is an arm and a leg///when will google bite that bullet and give us in europe a fight between telefonica and google .pc to fon should be free here as well

By: coldbrew

coldbrew — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:12:06 +0000

Soon there will be an open source offering with similar capabilities as this, but more like Wordpress so one can either self-host or have it hosted (like Skydeck). Then one only needs to change SIP trunk providers if quality or service become an issue. And the data-mining/ privacy issues also go away. Telephony software is becoming a commodity fast.

By: Shoeb Ahmed

Shoeb Ahmed — Wed, 13 May 2009 18:37:57 +0000

I have a few things to say. I used to use GrandCentral and then recently migrated to Google Voice. The call quality of Google Voice is really bad. (Some callees don’t get it that bad, but most do)

Almost all outgoing calls I make via GV have horrible call quality.
The other thing is a couple important things, you can’t make free calls to Canada using GV (costs you 1c). GC, however, allows you to – for free.

GC allows you to add new phone numbers to your account, like home number, work number, etc that are in Canada and then when you migrate to GV, it’ll still work. But once you’re in GV, you will not be allowed to add a Canadian phone number.

Having given some facts for future migrators, here’s what I think of Skydeck. I think it’s great. There’s one other online service like Skydeck and it’s called Dashwire. It’s primarily for backup. But you can send text messages through it’s website and they go out via your phone. Making calls, unfortunately, work only if you have a Skype client installed (It calls the Skype application to allow you to make the outgoing call, not your phone’s)

So, I’m thinking I will give Skydeck a try. Just so I can send text’s and make calls through it. Don’t know about letting them use my GV yet.

By: Erwin Brauser

Erwin Brauser — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:52:11 +0000

right, but I think the point is that if you use GV then you only want to give out one number and manage it all behind the scenes, thus over time most wouldn’t know you’re real cell number

By: Jack Wong

Jack Wong — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:06:28 +0000

The comment about having to switch all your numbers is a bit misleading. With Google Voice, you keep all your individual numbers but you do need a new uber number that Google Voice will give you that becomes an alias for the collection of all your numbers so if you want to use this service, you will need to give out this new number to your contacts.

People can still call you directly to your individual numbers so you dont give those up.

By: Tim Garner

Tim Garner — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:51:23 +0000

I’ve tried switching over to Google Voice a couple of times but found that with T-Mobile there was just too much of a lag time and calls would hit my mailbox before the phone would ring. I was just missing too many calls.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:44:48 +0000

Leena, were you paid to write this story? Sounds an awful lot like Skydeck marketing folks wrote it for you.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:24:05 +0000

Thanks Hart. I added my email to that back when it was GrandCentral. Still waiting… hopefully soon because it looks beyond amazing.

By: Randy

Randy — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:23:51 +0000

If you are looking for a simple way to solve phone management while keeping your existing number, try LetsCallMe.com. LetsCallMe offers an easy way to manage who calls you on your existing phones (landline and cell) and a variety of powerful call management and messaging tools such as automatic “do not disturb” settings, custom messaging and call blocking. It’s way less than Skydeck and designed for easy web use.

Check it out at http://www.letscallme.com.

By: Hart Keller

Hart Keller — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:05:38 +0000

You can request an invitation for Google Voice here:

https://service...glevoiceinvite/

It’s not open to the public yet.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:02:06 +0000

Are there still invites floating around for Google Voice? I’ve been trying to get in since it was Grand Central with no luck.

Or better yet when are they going to open up for more users?

By: Matt Martin

Matt Martin — Wed, 13 May 2009 16:00:02 +0000

Where is the iphone support?

By: Yolk

Yolk — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:57:41 +0000

get one at ebay for $1300

http://cgi.ebay...rkparms=72:1234|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50

By: Hart Keller

Hart Keller — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:49:28 +0000

I’ve been using Youmail and Grandcentral/GV for a couple of years and they’ve been working well but I’ll give Skydeck a whirl out of curiosity.

By: Brad Campbell

Brad Campbell — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:47:05 +0000

I think google is on the verge of taking over the world! Sounds very cool and I always look forward to advancements by google that make my duties as an entrepreneur evem more proficient. Thanks for the post!