Google Voice for everyone

Google
Voice for everyone

6/22/2010 10:00:00 AM

(Cross-posted from the Google
Voice Blog)

A little over a year ago, we released an early
preview of Google Voice, our web-based platform for managing your
communications. We introduced one number to ring all your phones,
voicemail that works like email, free calls and text messages to the
U.S. and Canada, low-priced international calls and more—the only catch
was you had to request and receive an invite to try it out. Today, after
lots of testing and tweaking, we’re excited to open up Google Voice to
the public, no invitation required.

Over the past year, we’ve
introduced a mobile
web app, an integrated
voicemail player in Gmail, the ability to use Google
Voice with your existing number and more. Over a
million of you are now actively using Google Voice, and many of the
features released over the past year (like SMS
to email and our Chrome
extension) came as a result of your suggestions, so thanks!

If
you haven’t yet tried Google Voice, we can’t wait for you to try it out
and let us
know what you think. Check out our revamped features page to
learn about everything Google Voice can do, and if you haven’t seen it
yet, this video provides a good overview in less than two minutes:

We’re
proud of the progress we’ve made with Google Voice over the last few
years, and we’re still just scratching the surface of what’s possible
when you combine your regular phone service with the latest web
technology. It’s even more amazing to think about how far communication
has come over the last couple hundred years. To put things in context,
we created this infographic to visualize some recent history of human
communication and how Google Voice uses the web to help people
communicate in more ways than ever before (click the image for a larger
version):



Update
10:53AM: Just to clarify, though we've opened up sign-ups,
Google Voice is still limited to everyone in the U.S. for now.

Posted by Craig Walker & Vincent Paquet,
Google Voice Product Managers

Customers Gone Wild: How Not to React to Online Complaints - MarketingVOX

Customers Gone Wild: How Not to React to Online Complaints - MarketingVOX

Home » Archives » 2010 » Jun » 04 » Customers Gone Wild: How Not to React to Online Complaints...
Customers Gone Wild: How Not to React to Online Complaints

AT&T Wireless Giorgio G. had a few complaints about his iPhone wireless service - complaints he expressed directly to CEO Randall Stephenson via email. Twice. After the second email, Giorgio received a phone message from AT&T thanking him for his feedback and then warning him that a cease and desist letter may be sent to him if he contacts Stephenson again.

If you haven’t read about what happened next then you can probably guess: Giorgio posted the voice mail message along with his original emails to his website, which quickly went viral. AT&T eventually apologized to Giorgio.

AT&T, it is widely agreed, was out of bounds in its response. However, other companies have been just as quick to threaten legal action against consumers that have taken their complaints online. From the perspective of the firm, it is easy to understand why: a local company’s reputation could easily be at risk and if it feels the complaints are unwarranted threatening legal action seems the wisest course.

Pending Bill

But for the most part, it is best for a company to try to engage the customer in a positive manner - assuming he is not making wild accusations. Perhaps more to the point, Congress is considering implementing a law that could make it harder for companies to sue consumers making statements about them online.

Such suits, know in First Amendment circles as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or Slapp, are meritless defamation suits - meritless because unless someone is outright lying about a specific incident the First Amendment gives people the right to voice opinions. (via the New York Times). The point is rather to force the critic to back down to avoid a large legal bill.

The bill, in the House Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy, would allow someone who believes he is being sued for speaking out or petitioning on a public matter to seek to have the suit dismissed, the Time reported. If a case is dismissed for being a Slapp, the plaintiff would have to pay the defendant’s legal fees.

The BP Model

A better way to deal with online complaints can be found with BP. Recently a Tweeter has begun impersonating the oil company for laughs on the site. Most readers know it is a joke - but some have not caught on and have been outraged by the supposedly cavalier Tweets.

A sample of his work: Just got 100k followers and our oil is headed to Florida. You know what this means… WE'RE GOING TO DISNEYWORLD!

If we're being accused of being criminals, we want to be tried by a jury of our peers- wealthy execs who don't give a damn.

We are very upset that Operation: Top Kill has failed. We are running out of cool names for these things.

eConsultancy points out that BP has done nothing to silence the BPGlobalPR Twitter feed, though it's probably within their rights on Twitter to do so. In this case, it made the wise decision to ignore the feed and let people express their frustration. “At this point, the best PR strategy is to simply fix the problem they've created.”

Official Google Blog: Google Voice for everyone

Official Google Blog: Google Voice for everyone

Google Voice for everyone
6/22/2010 10:00:00 AM
(Cross-posted from the Google Voice Blog)

A little over a year ago, we released an early preview of Google Voice, our web-based platform for managing your communications. We introduced one number to ring all your phones, voicemail that works like email, free calls and text messages to the U.S. and Canada, low-priced international calls and more—the only catch was you had to request and receive an invite to try it out. Today, after lots of testing and tweaking, we’re excited to open up Google Voice to the public, no invitation required.

Over the past year, we’ve introduced a mobile web app, an integrated voicemail player in Gmail, the ability to use Google Voice with your existing number and more. Over a million of you are now actively using Google Voice, and many of the features released over the past year (like SMS to email and our Chrome extension) came as a result of your suggestions, so thanks!

If you haven’t yet tried Google Voice, we can’t wait for you to try it out and let us know what you think. Check out our revamped features page to learn about everything Google Voice can do, and if you haven’t seen it yet, this video provides a good overview in less than two minutes:

We’re proud of the progress we’ve made with Google Voice over the last few years, and we’re still just scratching the surface of what’s possible when you combine your regular phone service with the latest web technology. It’s even more amazing to think about how far communication has come over the last couple hundred years. To put things in context, we created this infographic to visualize some recent history of human communication and how Google Voice uses the web to help people communicate in more ways than ever before (click the image for a larger version):

Posted by Craig Walker & Vincent Paquet, Google Voice Product Managers