One number to rule the world!
March 27, 2007
I signed up as beta user of GrandCentral last year when Lance from Yahoo! suggested it to me. Neat idea, but it seemed like too much of a commitment to start giving out my new ‘GrandCentral’ number instead of my office or cell phone number. I trust AT&T and Sprint to be my phone company, but I was unconvinced that Craig, Vincent and Don were ready to be my new phone company. Anyway, when was the last time you bought voice services from a company who clearly indicated their product was BETA?
When David Pogue wrote about the service in the New York Times last week, he suggested, "It’s a rather brilliant melding of cellphone and the Internet." Lots of people signed up and more than a few told their contacts to start using the new number. Almost everyone Mike Arrington knows who switched back, and EVERYONE I know who switched has since switched back. Mike explains,
One person, who uses his desk and cell phone “constantly” to do business, said that it only worked properly about half the time. When you whitelist phone numbers, they are supposed to ring right through without having to record their name or wait. Even with their caller ID turned off, callers on his white list said they were still being put in the queue. Important clients, who were supposed to bypass the review, were getting pissed off. “I just couldn’t afford the risk” he said. “When I kept hearing the recorded name of my most important client and realize he’s waiting on hold while I stumble for the “1″ button to put him through, I knew I couldn’t keep using it.” he also said that clients were complaining that calls weren’t picked up at all and they were being put through to voicemail. “These guys don’t do voicemail” he said. “They simply call my competitor.”
Turns out phones are very important to most people. Unlike web services, we are not willing to receive a message like ‘Your Phone is Getting a Massage‘ like we are from our favorite photo sharing service. I think the idea of a centralized number to help you manage your various phones is awesome, but I have a few suggestions:
- Allow users to pick a primary number (i.e. don’t give them a new number, instead let them use a number they own)
- Make the aassigned number portable (i.e. users can port it to another provider quickly and easily)
Finally, if you run an Asterisk PBX you can easily create your own master number. It took a few hours, but the Big in Japan team turned my office phone number in a master number. How does it work? If you dial my office line it rings the office line, car phone and Blackjack PDA simultaneously. When I pick up my office line I wanted to be able to talk to the caller immediately. When I pick up my car phone or Blackjack I am given the caller ID and may press 1 if I want to take the call. If I do not press 1 my office voicemail system takes a message. Those messages are then routed to my email address. We could add other features, but this seems to work fairly well.
