Over the last few weeks, Google Voice has finally begun sending out invites to the throngs of people who have signed up since the service stopped accepting new users in 2007, following its acquisition. But now that all of these people are beginning to experience the wonders of Google Voice, they’re also running into its biggest roadblock: in order to be effective, you need everyone to start calling your new number. And that means you need to print new business cards. In recognition of this fact, Google is giving away 50,000 sets of 25 free Google Voice business cards, printed by iPrint. If you’ve got a Google Voice account, you can grab a set here.
The multicolored cards are definitely going to catch the eye of anyone you hand them to, and they also do a great job at highlighting the most important thing on the card: your new number. And while you may not be too keen to have everyone start calling you rather than using Email (which is going to be one of the side effects), you can always take advantage of Google Voice’s automatic voicemail transcription.
Of course, there’s a good chance that none of this will be necessary once Google Voice introduces number portability, which would let you keep your current number and transfer it to the service. We’ve previously confirmed that a very small number of people have already been able to port their numbers over, and that Google hopes to roll it out later this year, though the logistical hurdles involved are huge.
This isn’t the first time Google has given away free business cards in honor of a new product launch. In May the search giant gave away free sets of cards to commemorate the launch of the inclusion of Google Profiles in search results (the cards instruct people to simply ‘Google’ your name). They’re definitely great keepsakes, but I’ve got to be honest — every person I’ve handed one to has given me a really strange look.
Thanks to Jeff Martens for the tip.