New Google program turns voicemail into email

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Internet search giant Google has expanded its push into the telephone market, offering a service that provides a single number for home, work and cell phones and turns voicemail into email.

Google Voice automatically transcribes voicemail messages into email or SMS text messages and provides a transcript in a user’s email inbox on their mobile phone or computer.

“When you receive a voicemail Google Voice will automatically transcribe it into text so you can read what the voicemail is about,” Google said in an instructional video on the company blog.

It warned, however, that since the transcripts are “fully automated” through voice recognition technology, they “may include mistakes.”

The service is currently available only to existing users of a Google-owned telephone service known as GrandCentral, which the Mountain View, California, Internet company purchased in July 2007.

But Google said it is to be offered for free to new subscribers to Google Voice in the next few weeks.

GrandCentral provides a single telephone number for home, work, and mobile phones and a central voicemail inbox that can be accessed through the web.

It also allows for low-priced international calls over the Internet.

Like GrandCentral, Google Voice will also allow users to consolidate their home, work and cell phones in a single telephone number.

Google during the past year has been actively exploring ways to expand its revenue, almost all of which currently comes from Internet search advertising.

Recent moves include adding advertisements to Google properties such as Google News, Google Maps and Google Finance and to videos on YouTube, which Google purchased for $1.6 billion in 2006.

Last Wednesday, Google launched a test version of a new “interest-based” advertising system that shows ads targeted to web surfers based on their previous online activities.