Wednesday, November 17, 2010

What next??

Daily social networking platforms, iPhone/Droid apps are coming up in the market. The battle for identity on web goes on and every morning a new/existing business comes up with a new innovative idea. Daily trending news like Facebook messaging system, More than 250 million users on Facebook, iPhone with Verizon, Twitter trends and Foursquare with new badges makes you think “What Next?”

Here is the next story which interested me the most this week i.e. Google Voice available on iPhone. As everyone know Google Voice gives you one number for all your phones, voicemail as easy as email, free US long distance, low rates on international calls. Google Voice really impressed me in many ways like you get a number which you can direct to your cell phone and receive the Google voice call on your cell phone. You can also make free long distance calls within the US. Also Voicemail transcription is an existing feature through which you can get your voicemail as an email. Other features includes: Free text messaging to U.S. numbers, cheap rates for international calls.

Few months back in August 2010 Google introduced Call from Gmail, free calls to US and Canada. Now gmail has phone calls option using VoIP technology from the Gizmo5 acquisition. If you have a Google Voice phone number, Incoming calls pop up as a chat window in Gmail and you press a "Call phone" button that appears near the top of the Chat window to send an outbound call.

And now in November 2010 Google comes up with “Google Voice app” for iPhone. After been rejected from the App Store finally a free version of Google Voice web app is available. Google has put the power of HTML5 includes a few extra bonuses like a sleek design for your Google Voice inbox, with the option to create home screen icons for individual pages and the ability to display your Google Voice number as the outbound caller ID so you can easily receive return calls. You can also send and receive text messages for free. So if you are using an iPhone do check out Google Voice app.

The rivalry still continues and everyday existing businesses come up with new thought and startups comes with new idea with the common statement “that's just going to be another social network platform” and an end user with the common question “What Next?”