The list of features from GrandCentral.com is pretty impressive. I first heard about the service from my friend Ethan. We were talking about how technology is changing almost everything about human productivity potential.
He mentioned Grand Central, I looked it up; I was sold. I registered for my number and am now patiently waiting for them to allow me to use the service.
Below are a list of features that I thought were especially cool.
To check them out for yourself go here or here.
Through your cell phone or a landline, you can:
1. Listen in while somebody is leaving a voicemail, then pick up mid-message.
2. Permanently block certain numbers (Say goodbye to telemarketers) and have any voicemail’s from them go to a “spam” box.
3. Click a button anytime and begin recording the call live — the call is then sent to your email inbox and stored online.
4. With webcall, you can let people call you from a website with the touch of a button. And they never see your number.
5. With the click of a button, switch between your cell phone and a landline (or vice versa) or between two cell phones, or whatever.
6. Receive voicemail notifications via email or SMS (this would be cool for messages that go to your landline while you’re outside of the office).
7. Centralize all your numbers! One number will call any number you’d like. If you change jobs or move, you won’t have to change numbers.
8. Received a voicemail that you need to share with a co-worker? No problem. Just forward the email with an attached sound file (mp3).
Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know if there are better solutions out there. Have you had experience with a similar, paid service? Was it better?
6 responses so far ↓
1 Paul Stamatiou // Apr 12, 2008 at 12:06 am
1 Reason Why GrandCentral Should be Avoided at all costs by your startup:
1) Endless wrong-number phone spam. We had GC setup for Skribit and we have received so many messages from different wrong numbers. I’m pretty sure GC just yanks phone numbers from people that don’t pay their bills.
2 adammichaelc // Apr 12, 2008 at 12:46 am
Thanks for chiming in Paul. It’s good to get feedback from others who have looked at the service.
3 Jerry Rucker // Apr 12, 2008 at 4:54 am
Second Paul’s comment about GC vm spam. And they definitely do recycle numbers, with too short an interval between.
My gf signed up in their first week many months ago (she used to work there, then she left) but stopped using it after a couple of months. One of her friends (a former co-worker) signed up about three months ago, and got my gf’s old number (in the 650 area code.)
I hope it’ll get better, but when is the question.
I wish http://www.numbr.com was taking registrations again, but as of now there aren’t too many alternatives.
4 Hasan // Apr 12, 2008 at 11:18 am
concept and feature set is awesome, actual utility is not so great - I signed up up ages ago and just have never really gotten too much out of it, but thinking about giving it a whirl again. they need to keep improving it, seems like it dropped off the radar after getting plucked by the big G. Would love to see better integration into Apps for Your Domain.
5 Luca // Apr 12, 2008 at 7:23 pm
I got in GC early enough to get a number, and I have not received a single spam message - or even a wrong number call.
6 Bob O'Shaughnessy // Apr 13, 2008 at 11:04 am
Issue 2 for Paul: No support from Google.
GrandCentral has been down for ~4 hours as of this writing. Phone numbers don’t ring. Website is gone. No comment from Google. No number to call, person to email. Zippo.
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