Howard Yermish, human » grandcentral

GrandCentral goes dark without notice

Howard Yermish — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 19:27:27 +0000

Early this morning, GrandCentral went offline. Not sure why. No notice to its users, but it is back online. Right now the service is totally free and in beta, so the users that will complain about this violently should remember… FREE and BETA do not mean RELIABLE. Yes, GrandCentral hopes to be a phone company someday. But as someone who has grown up with technology for my entire life, I know what to ultimately expect from free products currently in beta.

Update: Craig Walker posted this comment on the GrandCentral blog.

Ebay to Google… Skype + GrandCentral * Android = :-)

Howard Yermish — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:10:25 +0000

Webware posts this interesting article about the possibility of Ebay partnering or selling Skype to Google. Without getting into all of the plumbing or technical implications, this seems like a home run for both. Ebay gets some needed cash, but Google gets a seriously amazing product which fits into Google Talk/Chat, it’s Android platform and the GrandCentral product.

These together change the game for telephony. With a nice combination of these, you don’t need landlines ever again. And, your cell phone mixed with WiFi could be a seamless operation.

Invitation to GrandCentral

Howard Yermish — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:24:39 +0000

So after a very long wait, I received my invitation to GrandCentral back in the fall. The service is still in closed beta. GrandCentral, now owned by Google, is a service that gives you a single phone number which rings a collection of other numbers that you define for schedules, people, groups and such. I’ve played with other versions of this kind of service and was always less than impressed by the features. GrandCentral really raises the bar. One feature allows you to transfer a call from your office phone to your cell phone without the person on the other end of the call noticing anything, which is very slick. I’ll have a complete review of GrandCentral once I get a chance to really put it through its paces.