Google Voice is about to launch, it is “one phone number for all your phones, for life.” Give one phone number out, and then route the calls to wherever you want.
It has texting, voicemail transcription, ability to route specific numbers to certain phones or voicemail, conference calls, cheap international rates – and it’s free.
But for this to be successful, it must have 100% uptime, something Gmail has not had lately. Plus it needs real tech support, as in actual people you can call and get answers from if something goes wrong. Right now, Google has no live tech support for any product that I know of. something they badly need.
Would I print new business cards with my Google Voice number as my only number? Maybe, but only after the service has been running flawlessly for a year or so.
However until then, it could make a useful number when you don’t want to give out your actual number, like for doctors, lawyers, whoever.
“Would I print new business cards with my Google Voice number as my only number?”
I don’t think you’ll need to! There’s a really good website called Avakit that can solve the issue of getting all your friends and business contacts to get your new number. It really helped me when I changed jobs, otherwise it would have been a nightmare to sit and think of every person who I need to send my new contact info to. Now I just need to add my google number.
It even lets you set “permissions”, so dont have to show all your info to that doctor, lawyer, etc that you mentioned… Highly recommend it!