I’m in the GrandCentral beta and have been poking around a bit this past week trying to get my head around how best to use this thing. Which is funny since I couldn’t wait to get started when I first heard of it last year. Now that I finally have it, I have this odd sort of stage fright. My contrarian nature I suppose.
What is GrandCentral?
GrandCentral doesn’t replace your phones; we just link them together and help them do more. How do we do that? We give people One Number…for LifeTM – a number that’s not tied to a phone or a location – but tied to you.
With GrandCentral, you can be reached with a single number, answer a call at any phone you want, seamlessly switch phones in the middle of a call, and even know whether a call is important before you take it.
You control where that One Number rings — or you can have it ring to all your phones. Or have some people get routed to one phone, other people to your cell and yet another group always get voicemail. Or maybe just update it as you move throughout the day (there’s a mobile interface too).
There is a ton of options and flexibility to this thing and that might explain why I’m taking this one a bit slower than normal. Want to make sure I know what I’m getting into before I start handing out this number or update my business cards.
I expect to have more on GC after I’ve had a chance to use it a bit.
In the meantime, I have ten beta invites to give away. Just drop a comment below — put your proper email address in the comment form please. It isn’t shown (only I can see it) and won’t be abused beyond sending your invite.
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February 14th, 2008 
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Hookup the invite. This sounds interesting, it might even inspire me to plug in my home phone again!
Hook me up too
If I only have the one phone there wouldn’t be much point would there?
Dang!
I hate missing out on the shiny stuff.
@Peter and David – sent you invites last night. Enjoy!
@Rich – the only point would be if you plan to change that phone number in the future and want to do it seamlessly…
The downside though is not knowing what the GC pricing plans will be once the beta is over.
I’ve been toying with GrandCentral for a short while, and find it to be not incredibly relavent for me. The most I’ve done is set it up to forward to my Gizmo account (as explained below), and my cell phone.
One cool feature of the service is that it can forward incoming calls to a Gizmo VoIP account. To set it up, sign up for a Gizmo account if you don’t have one, go to the profile dialog in the Gizmo client, copy the first portion of your SIP address (before the @), and paste it into the phones screen on GrandCentral. Be sure to set the type as Gizmo, and configure the routing options as you please.
Hey Michael – it’ll forward to the “free” gizmo or have you purchased an incoming calls option?
I was briefly looking at Gizmo last night but just assumed I’d have to purchase an upgrade to get this working… I’d love to be wrong
Just a word of caution…
grandcentral seems to be in “google acquired limbo” – if you wonder what might end up happening, just stop by jotspot.com for an example
Grandcentral (google) managed to lose all of the voicemails a few weeks back, and still havent restored them. so play away, just dont rely on this thing for any serious business (translation: dont give this number out if you actually care about someone communicating to you)
Hey Goofy – thanks for the advice and word of caution. Much appreciated.
@Chris: I only have a free Gizmo account. I tested this feature, and it indeed works, for free. I assume it’s at no cost because GC does it totally digitally (through SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol).
I’ve tried numerous free phone/VM packages, and each one leaves me a little dissatisfied. If you still have another invite, I’m curious to see how a big player like Google would handle this. Cheers.
@michael – sweet, for some reason I figured it would only work with a paid account! You just saved me money
@Greg – Invite sent. Let us know how you get along.
Hello,
I am just wondering what countries the invites are available to? It seems like a very interesting service..
Hi Rom,
It appears to be for US numbers only at this time.
Could you send me an invite please?
Thanks in advance!
GrandCentral sounds like just what I need for my crazy travel schedule….I’d love an invite if ya still have some. Thanks.
Jared and Brad – Invites sent.
Could I get an invite? or did you zip through the ten?
Thanks,
Tim
Hey Tim – invite on the way (and I have a few left too). Enjoy!
If anyone has any invites left, please send me one. Thanks
Jim, I was just reading that anyone who is registered with blogger can signup for GrandCentral now…
invite me please
If there are any left, I’d LOVE an invite.
I would love an invite. Thanks either way!!!
An invite would be greatly appreciated! =) Thanks for your consideration!
Hi Matt, Rick, Cody and Nancy. As I mentioned earlier, if you signup for a blogger account, you can get into GC.
Here’s a post with more details.
Hi Chris,
Please send me an invite. I am very anxious to see how this works.
Thanks!
Danny
Chris:
I am an author just starting a book on Unified Communications. How timely is that? Please hook me up with an invite to join the GC Beta!
Thanks in advance.
JPC
Hi chris,
I heve heard and read a lot about Grand Central but am waiting for some one to send me an invite.
An Invite will be much appreciated.
Thanks
Hey there,
Just wondering if you have any GrandCentral invites left??
Justin
Hi Danny, Jim, Peroz and Justin. As I mentioned earlier, if you signup for a blogger account, you can get into GC.
Here’s a post with more details.
Help. I’ve been trying to get a number and hasn’t worked as yet.
Hi. I’m interested in trying GrandCentral.
this is so cool. please invite me.
Hi Chip and Jordan – I don’t seem to have any GC invites any more (or if I do, I sure can’t find them now).
Please Please pLease send me an invite i had gmail in beta and have had it for yearsi have literally 6 phone numbers and this would make a life as dad husband son Manager and owner proprieter so much easier.
@gary – sorry, but I don’t have anymore invites to offer. Did you try the blogger thing mentioned in the earlier comments here?
Would greatly appreciate an invite!
If you have any more invites I would really appreicate it.
If anyone has invites, please shoot me one.