Web Worker Daily

A few days ago, Aliza provided some excellent planning advice on how to pick a company phone system. I’ve written in the past about three options for incoming service: Google Voice (which now lets you use some of its features with your existing number), 3jam, and Grasshopper (which is now reportedly profitable.)

This time, let’s look at a business phone system that provides both incoming and outgoing service, plus actual phones. The folks at RingCentral have kindly set me up with one of their packages, the RingCentral Office. They also offer RingCentral Online, an inbound service similar to those listed above, but we’ll focus on the Office package for simplicity. Read the rest of this entry »

With all of the fancy technologies we use today, it’s easy for web workers to overlook the importance of the telephone. I communicate with my two colleagues at our home offices by email and IM, and through our project management system, but we still spend a lot of time on the phone. And, of course, current and prospective customers need to call us, to discuss projects and get support.

Many web workers are looking at services like Google Voice and 3jam, which allow you to have one business phone number that can be configured to forward to cell phones, to voice mail, or to colleagues if you’re out of the office. Google Voice, however, isn’t really designed for business use, and 3jam has only limited business-oriented features.

If you need more robust features, there are many business-oriented “virtual phone systems.” I’ve recently taken one such product, Grasshopper (formerly GotVMail), for a spin, and was impressed by it. But its cost is higher than Google Voice and 3jam, so you’ll need to see if the feature set is worth it for you. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been using Google Voice since it was GrandCentral, and have been quite impressed. But it’s still in beta, and while invitations to the beta are finally becoming available, I understand that they’re still hard to come by.

3jam is billing itself as an alternative to Google Voice, and it’s available today, so I’ve given it a quick spin. This is not a complete review, as there are some of 3jam’s features that I haven’t tried, such as SMS messaging, forwarding to Skype, an API that lets you write your own applications to interact with their service, and “group” numbers that allow multiple users to share voice mail and messaging. Read the rest of this entry »

Google Voice wants to be your phone manager, SMS and voicemail provider. The service is rumored to be almost ready for public access.

Google Voice germinated after Google acquired GrandCentral almost two years ago. The service was relaunched earlier this year as a private beta for GrandCentral users. I’ve been using it for a while, and am generally impressed. Google Voice offers a number of features that should make it popular with web workers. Read the rest of this entry »

Voicemail, useful though it is, is pretty unsophisticated: you record a greeting, caller leaves a message. YouMail aims to improve the voicemail experience, making you more productive in the process. It allows you to record per-contact and per-group greetings, receive voicemail via cell phone, email and web site, and get your voicemails transcribed.

Signing up with the service is a breeze. Just enter your cell phone number into the YouMail web site to receive an activation code sent to your phone. Copy the code into the web app, and you’re in. YouMail provides excellent setup instructions specific to your phone (complete with screenshots for my BlackBerry Curve). After setup, YouMail lets you select how you want to receive alerts. Read the rest of this entry »

Web Worker Daily readers are likely familiar with GrandCentral, a service that gives you a single phone number that can ring multiple phones including your office, cellular phone, and home number simultaneously.

However, if you’ve ever thought it would be nice to read your voicemails either in as a text message or email, PhoneTag has a service in mind for you.  With this add-on PhoneTag service, you can have all your phones ring at the same time, and if you call goes to voicemail – ready your voicemail through PhoneTag.

These voicemail to text services have been around for quite some time, but before this integration between PhoneTag and GrandCentral, you had to choose between the two services. No more.

Read the rest of this entry »