I just started using an AWESOME new service called GrandCentral. In short, you sign up, they assign you a phone number (based on an area code you want) and then you use that phone number as a central way to be reached. You link any of your phones to this number (cell, office, home, home office, etc.) and then, when someone calls you at this new main number, the service calls ALL your phones simultaneously and allows you to pick up from there. As you go through your life, adding or changing phone numbers, this one will remain constant.
But there is so much more to GrandCentral. Once you’ve answered on, say, your cell phone, while maybe driving home, you can, when you get home, just hit the * key, and the call will switch instantly (and without the caller knowing it) to your home phone (and vice versa). The service takes a voice mail if you’re not reached, and then emails you with a message that you have a voicemail. You can click on the email link and GrandCentral will then play back the voicemail on your computer.
The additional other things this service does go on and on. Call screening, VM, dialing from your computer (directly goes to your cell or landline — very cool), storage of VM online, you name it. They have really, really done an amazing job of taking our I-have-six-numbers world and simplified it.
Oh, and did I mention that all of this is free? Yep, while in beta, everything is free (and much of it will remain that way once they go out of of beta). And finally, just after I signed up, they announced that Google had acquired them, so you know that Google will support them and supply them with enough cash to get this thing totally tricked out. It’s the coolest thing I’ve seen all year (it’s almost better than the iPhone!). Check it out, you’ll be glad you did.
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