Ministry of Intrigue

Just a short post to say that I’m altering the Everything feed for this site. Previously, it contained all the blog posts, links and photos that appear here. However, as I am piping this feed into several external sites, notably Google Buzz, and until services like Buzz allow me to specify particular feeds for import, as opposed to using auto-discovery, I risk flooding my activity stream every time I do a mass upload to my Flickr account. I’d rather not annoy anyone, so I’m temporarily removing photo posts from the Everything feed. If you still wish to see my photos as I post them, feel free to subscribe to my Flickr feed.

Hopefully, this will just be temporary, and I’ll be able to specify my customized Google Buzz feed later without interfering with the primary feed, at which point I will return photos to this subscription feed. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Also, because I haven’t repeated the word often enough: feed. 

Google Voice is Google’s upgrade to the GrandCentral service they acquired almost two years ago. I’ve had a GrandCentral account for almost as long as the service existed, but I never found a reason to use it, mostly because the feature set was just short of being useful enough for me to want to manage an additional phone service. However, Google has added a number of features that make it an extremely compelling service. In particular:

• Ability to place domestic and international calls with Google Voice number
• SMS support and routing
• Voicemail transcription (Also, downloadable as MP3)
• Call conferencing
• Call Recording (Incoming calls only, downloadable as MP3)

Wait, you smell that? Smells like screenshots:

Google Voice Inbox showing SMS functions and voice mail transcription.

Google sends a notification email for new voicemail with the transcription.

Google Voice forwards SMS messages received to my cell phone as well as voicemail notifications.

These features, along with the previously existing call-routing and contact management features (which are awesome) make the service something I could easily see myself becoming dependent on in the near future. I’m already scheming to start routing more of my telephone communication (especially anyone who is not a friend or family member) through my GV account.

Now, Google Voice has already received a ton of press online detailing all the new features, and rather than repeat everything that has already been said, let me just say this: I do not understand how this is not already a paid service. Slap an SLA on this service and I would not even think twice about paying $50 a year for it. The only possible reason I can think of for not doing this is to stay cheaper than Skype, which charges for having a phone number and voice mail. Skype’s international rates are still slightly cheaper than Google’s, but it’s free offerings offer nothing like the basic feature-set provided by Google Voice.

I have only two one complaints about Google Voice. First, the inbox defaults to showing all messages and does not have a way for me to use the unread-only view as my default, which gets annoying because it is an extra mouse-click every time I go to look at my messages. The only way to prevent a message from showing up again is to delete it, which I don’t want to do. (Fixed: Google pushed out an update on 2009-04-02 which defaults the inbox view to unread-only, or at least it remembers my preference). Secondly, While the mobile web app is fast and great, I want a native app for managing my account on my phone. It seems like Android integration is the obvious path for Google, but I would hope they would also follow their previous practice and release an iPhone application (or integrate it into their existing app) as well.

On the whole, I think this is an excellent service and a home-run for Google. It’s the first time I’ve been this excited about a Google product since Google Reader and Gmail. In fact, I’ve written this post partly in the hopes that it will help me stop telling my friends about Google Voice every time we talk to each other, as I am sure they are ready for me to shut up about it. I was even tempted to do a screencast to show off how you work with the application, but video adds a lot of difficulty to the process of hiding other people’s phone numbers, and I respect my friends’ privacy.

Currently the service is only available to users with existing GrandCentral accounts, but Google has stated they plan on opening to the service to new users soon, presumably with “soon” being a value somewhere between a few weeks and just before our sun explodes.

If you have used Google Voice and would like to leave me a comment about what you think, feel free to click the call widget below to leave a voicemail message with my Google Voice account. I’ll keep it active for at least a few weeks. Also, when you leave your message, please indicate if you would like your message included in this post. I don’t promise that I will include your message, but I do promise that if you leave me a voicemail I will not post the audio or your name without your permission. I reserve the write to quote you anonymously in text, however, because I like to write and that’s just the way I roll.

On recommendation of far too many people to mention, I’m checking out Google Reader again.

I remember peeking at it when it was first released, when I was stubbornly intent on sticking with browser/desktop based reader, and I remember being less than impressed. In typical Google fashion the initial interface was so sparse and ultimately gave me the initial impression of it being a fairly weak client. In fact, I was so turned off by it, that I never gave it a chance beyond feeding it a few test subscriptions before going back to using Sage.

Ultimately, it would be Bloglines that converted me to web-based feed reading. I fell in love with its simple interface and powerful key commands, as well as the convenience of accessing my feeds everywhere. As I began to imbibe more and more of the Web 2.0 kool-aid, I began to manage more and more of my life on the web. I’ve been using Bloglines for at least nine months now, and I’ve been quite happy with it. The Bloglines notifier held a place of honor in my Firefox status bar, right next to theGmail manager extension.

Now, when I started hearing people recommending Google Reader to me again, I was suspicious that the Google fanboy virus was to blame. However, upon reflecting on the wonder that is Gmail, not to mention Google Calendar and the fantastic overhaul of Google Groups I decided that I’d give Reader another try.

All I have to say is, “Wow.” I’m really impressed with the new interface, it seems to blend the best features of Bloglines, Gmail and more tag-based service like Rojo. The key-commands are similar to Gmail, and uses tags/labels just like Gmail as well. The interface is really nice and I find the interface far more visually pleasing than Bloglines, and not nearly as cluttered as Rojo. I like that when I start reading a feed that items are marked as read when I scroll past them, as opposed to Bloglines which marks every item as read as soon as I open the feed. Also, while I don’t make use of this feature as much, I really like the way Google integrates their feed sharing features into the service. Every feed has the option to be shared, as does each feed item, and each feed item can be emailed with a single click. Very slick.

Those sharing features are also available in Bloglines, but they seem more prominent in Google Reader. On the whole, GR seems more polished, although I do enjoy the simplicity of Bloglines. It remains to be seen if I’m going to switch for good, but I think I’ll run them both parallel for a while and let you all know about the experience.

Incidentally, if you want to try out Google Reader, I’d recommend checking out the Google Reader Notifier extension for Firefox, by Mark D.B.D. It rocks.