PaulSpoerry.com

Want in on Google Voice’s web-based, transcribed, custom-greeted voicemail, but you’re not quite ready to adopt a new number? Starting tonight, Voice users can choose to keep their number and still get Google’s upgraded voicemail features. (Note that this still requires a Google Voice invite as GV is still in beta).

Google Voice is a Swiss Army knife of cool and free phone service add-ons — including free SMSes, an online mailbox for voice messages, the ability to have one number ring all of your phone numbers simultaneously, low international rates and a customized voicemail messages for every contact. It’s not phone service per se though, since you still need a mobile phone or landline.

But using Google Voice requires users to use their Google Voice number as their main number. That’s a not-inconsiderable burden, given that some mobile phone users have thousands of contacts who know their number and don’t want the hassle of changing business cards and forcing others to update their contacts.

Google’s solution? Create a light version that gives phone-number-huggers better voicemail. Using a mobile carrier’s call-forwarding codes, Google Voice Light will send a mobile phone’s unanswered calls to a Google-powered mailbox. When callers leave a message there, Google records and transcribes it, and saves it in an online mailbox. The roughly translated text and a link to an online recording can be sent via SMS or e-mail.

The capability will also benefit those who have migrated to Google Voice, since currently the voicemail feature only kicks in when people call the Google Voice number, which forwards the call to a user’s mobile phone. Currently, those who call the mobile phone directly leave a message using the mobile carrier’s network, but with the new system, those calls can be diverted as well.

The voice messages can be stored in perpetuity, forwarded to family or friends, and they can be saved, even if you decide to switch mobile carriers. In return, Google gets your loyalty, more users with Google accounts and more pages for it to place online ads. That’s also not including the training data it gets for its translation engine — not dissimilar to why Google offers a free phone number lookup: GOOG-411.

This doesn’t really help me since my carrier charges for forwarded calls… bummer.

Last month Google reserved an additional 1 million phone numbers with Level 3, who has been providing numbers for Google Voice since it was announced. Many are speculating it’s release to the world in general is eminent. A public launch has been anticipated since Google said in March the service would be “open to new users soon.” Many believed the new numbers would be unleashed on June 18th, but Google Voice Product Manager Craig Walker quickly dispelled that on his own Twitter stream.

Google Voice is the re-branded GrandCentral. Google Voice provides a lot of the functionality of a full blown PBX and wraps it all into a user friendly interface. Many believe it will provide “One Number To Rule Them All” where you have a single number that rings any or all of your phone. You can also decided which calls go to which numbers, screen incoming calls, use SMS, and have your voicemails transcribed and sent to you (though this isn’t 100% perfect it works pretty darn well). The full list of features can be found on the Google Voice “About” page.

Last week, TechCrunch reported that Google would add number portability later this year to Google Voice, which would let users keep one of their existing phone numbers as their Google Voice number. For example, users could make their cell phone number their Google Voice number.

I don’t know that 1 million numbers is enough to satisfy the demand for users wanting to get their hands on Google Voice, especially once number portability is integrated. I know people who check almost daily in an attempt to get a Google Voice account (lucky for me I’ve had an account since it was known as Grand Central). What we may be seeing is Google ramping up for the first round of public beta’s. Perhaps they will do like GMail and let the first 1 million number out, and then only additional numbers via invites from existing users. We’ll see soon enough as Google seems to be adding more and more features and gearing up for some type of release in the near future.