GrandCentral Moves To Google Voice

I've been participating in the GrandCentral Beta for a little while now, and I've been mostly impressed by the service. The amount of customization is spectacular, with the ability to set up various voice mail messages for different groups and people, and setting who can call what phone and when, are just a few of the options that you get to play around with in GrandCentral, and are just a few of the reasons I really like the service.

Recently, Google moved GrandCentral over to the mother ship and officially made the property they acquired a while back part of the big Google family. Now, putting aside that at this point Google really does know way too much about me, I'm mostly happy about this. The interface for the "new" Google Voice is drastically different than what GrandCentral offered, but I'm adjusting pretty well to the new Interface. I'm slightly disappointed though that my contacts list and voicemails did not make the transition from GrandCentral to Google Voice, but I suppose that's what I get for Beta testing a product like this.

One of the things I've noticed is that, unlike most Google products that reduce the amount of clicks it takes to do something, Google Voice actually increase the amount of clicks it takes to do many actions. For example, creating a group in GrandCentral involved hitting a Create button and setting everything up on the next screen, including selecting contacts to be in that group and what phones ring when those contacts call. Now I have to scroll to settings to create a group, then back to the group page to add contacts, then back to settings to select which phones get the message and click the advanced tab to do further customization. Same end result, just a bit more involved than previously.

I also enjoy that they are doing their best to pimp all their products, and it saddened me to realize how deep I am into Google's fold. Take this screen grab for example. This is their screen to demonstrate the changed Call Me Button (a widget you can add to any website that allows people to call you right from the site). If you'll notice, in one screen Google is pimping their Blogger Service, their Chrome Browser and their Google Voice service. That's pretty impressive all-in-all. The sad part? I use all of those. All I need now is a Android phone and I'll be completely entrenched in Google.

The move to Google Voice means a few good things though. First, if it's a "Google" labeled product, it will most likely stay free. The big G will subsidize the cost through advertising most likely, which is fine by me... I think. I was afraid of what GrandCentral would cost when it went Release, so I did not go all in on it, but now that it's looking to remain the same I'm leaning more toward relying on my Google Voice number. Also, the move means that there should be another round of beta invites soon, or maybe even a soft launch. If you're interested in the service, you can sign up to get notified for the next round of invites or check out all it can do.

I'm really excited to see where Google goes with this service, as I think it has a lot of potential. If you get in, let us know what you think. If you've been involved with GrandCentral and recently switched to Google Voice, make sure to drop us a line with your impressions.