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Google Voice Gains Better SMS And Gmail SupportGoogle Voice Gains Better SMS And Gmail Support
This week Google quietly updated some of the features within Google Voice. One new feature enables threaded SMS messaging conversations within Gmail, and the other eases the pain of listening to voicemails from within Gmail.
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This week Google quietly updated some of the features within Google Voice. One new feature enables threaded SMS messaging conversations within Gmail, and the other eases the pain of listening to voicemails from within Gmail.The two new features announced for Google Voice this week aren't earth shattering, but they are certainly useful.
Google already allows SMS messages to be sent to Google Voice numbers. Google then forwards those messages to your mobile phone and your Google Voice inbox. Now, Google will also forward those SMS messages to your email account.
Google lists some of the benefits of this feature:
Unified messaging: You can get SMS together with email and voicemail notifications, all in one place in your email inbox, where you can easily search and reply to these messages.
SMS savings: If you spend your time in front of your computer, or if you get email on your mobile phone, you can turn off SMS notification to your phone in Google Voice and receive and reply to your SMS by email, saving on SMS costs.
SMS threading: If you use Gmail, you also get the extra benefit of threading all SMS between you and one contact into one conversation, so it is easy to see the whole discussion.
My favorite functionality of all of these is the threaded SMS messages within Gmail. That will really help keep your inbox much neater, and it will be more effective to carry out conversations via SMS.
The second new feature just eases the process of listening to voicemails from within Gmail. This week, Google introduced a new Lab in Gmail Labs called Google Voice Player. Once enabled, it will allow Gmail users to listen to their Google Voice voicemails directly from the Gmail message that delivered the voicemail. Before this Lab was available, Gmail opened a second browser window to play the voicemail. This could clutter up a user's screen a bit, and, well, Google just can't have that.
If streamlining your communications and keeping your inboxes less cluttered sounds good to you, I highly recommend you check out and enable these new features.
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