Google Adds Voice to Gmail: Just One Step Closer to World Domination!

In past installments of "It Ain't Rocket Surgery" I've waxed not-so-poetic about the pros and cons of multiple Google tools. For example, I talked about iGoogle home page, widgets, and Google bookmarks here. And I discussed using the Google Documents (Google Docs) features here (Google Docs are a lot like Office but they are online, cloud-based, and FREE, and allow you to collaborate with multiple people), and then brought it up again here when they rolled out some new functionality. I've also shown you how to find Google Easter Eggs here and talked about why it's important for you to know about the Google Health features here.

Now Google has done it again today with its initial rollout of allowing you to make and receive Google Voice calls through Gmail, which you can read all about here. If you don't know about Google Voice at all, you can read about it here.  

It's got some great features -- you can sign up to get one Google phone number and use it to ring multiple phones or a specific phone and if you ever move you can keep that Google number. It will also automatically transcribe your calls to text that you can save and search. There's a ton of features -- watch these videos to learn more.

So now you can make and receive calls from Gmail. Why is this such a big deal? Google Voice is already pretty cool without that. Well, what it does is makes your Gmail your hub for multiple things. There's a great post about that, called "All Hail The Gmail" here, by Om Malik on his blog, GigaOm. As Om succinctly points out, it positions Gmail to be the hub for all things social, including voice over IP, and is managed through your contacts. Pretty cool stuff. Just another reason to expect Google to take over the world. Seriously, the terminators should start appearing at any time....

So, do you use voice over IP services like Skype? And if so, will Google Voice tempt you to switch? 

About the Author

Stephen Welch

Senior Vice President, Communications
Executive Editor, CHEST

This blog, "It Ain't Rocket Surgery" is intended to help busy health-care professionals find useful online and mobile resources that will enhance their self-education and professional research efforts, or point out important topics of discussion related to online information and content. The blog's title is a Yogi Berra style mash-up of two common phrases, "it ain't brain surgery" and "it ain't rocket science". I hope it will be casual, fun, insightful, and -- most of all -- educational.

You can follow me on Twitter. 

I currently serve ACCP as the Senior Vice President of Communications, as well as the Executive Editor of CHEST, the ACCP’s flagship journal. During my 15 years here, ACCP has focused on growing and developing the editorial, technological, and business aspects of the College. We are constantly striving to make the journal and other ACCP educational content as accessible and useful to clinicians as possible.

When not at work, I like to spend time scuba diving with sharks, collecting original comic book artwork, exploring the digital world, and searching for good BBQ.

Your feedback about the blog is always appreciated. So are tips on good BBQ joints.