Use case #1 – Telephone overload. My wife and I acquired a free baby grand piano. It’s sweet. But we already had an 1863 upright grand that has seen better days. We originally got the first piano on Craigslist under the free section. I thought, let’s give it back to the community for free, too, so someone else can have a starter piano (it’s not in the best shape, but would be a great candidate for restoring). Little did I know that 4 seconds after I added the posting to Craigslist, my phone would start ringing off the hook. (Sure, I could have said for people to email me, but let’s face it, when you want to arrange something to be picked up, email is not the best option). I received 47 calls about the piano within the first 24 hours. You do the math, that’s a lot of phone calls every couple minutes.

Solution: “Do Not Disturb.” By enabling the do not disturb mode of Google Voice, I was able to have the calls routed straight to voicemail and still transcribed and sent to me as a text. Getting a text once in a while is not nearly as bad as your phone ringing off the hook. (Especially when you have some parents or others around who can’t stand that some people actually ignore incoming phone calls, grab your phone, and bring it to you in the backyard where you’re busy weeding the garden).

Use #2: Texting. I text with some people alot. As in, we have the same amount of conversations over text as others would normally have over Instant Messaging. Here’s the deal: I have an iPhone, so I already sync my contacts with my gmail account, so getting all my contacts into Google Voice was a snap. Sending an SMS from Google Voice is simple: you start typing the name or number and it auto completes. And, since I work from the computer a few hours each day, I’m always around one. If I’m upstairs in my office, I can send a text. If I’m on the back patio where my laptop likes to hangout on nice days, I can send a text. In fact, it’s faster to open the laptop, fire up Google Voice and send a text than it is for me to find my cell phone (damn thing has a mind of its own), bring it down to where I’m working, and send a text over the phone. Are you a fast typer and do you hang out near a computer? If yes, get GV just to send some texts. Oh, and did I mention that your text messages and transcribed voicemail are kept in an inbox? Can you say searchable? Take a look at this screenshot, you can’t do this with your current voicemail, trust me.

Now, I know what you’re saying: Turning on “Do not disturb” might make me miss an important phone call. Well, if something is so important that you can’t miss it, you should still give out your real phone number, not your Google Voice number. Google Voice doesn’t support porting yet, so you’ll have to managed 2 phone numbers or tell your contacts to change you number. Then they’ll get all confused when you forget and call them from the older number. Especially now that Apple has rejected the iPhone app for Google Voice, GV is not a viable alternative to your real phone.

It is, however, a very powerful tool to have in your arsenal. Just like you have a need for Firefox and sometimes perhaps Opera or Flock as web browsers, you should grab a Google Voice number and hang onto it.