Google Voice and Mighty Text

I recently added two services that not only work as expected, they compliment each other nicely.

The first is Google Voice. Voice has been around a long time and I tried it before and liked it but for some reason when I changed cell providers I never bothered to reset this up. Well the other day I had reason to do so. If you're like me you don't listen to your voice mail, you simply see the number that called and call the person back. Well the other day I need to listen to a message and when I called my AT&T voicemail I had to listen to 20 messages before I could listen to the one I needed. Frustrated I remembered with the lite version of google voice your voicemails will be transcribed into text messages and emails (with the sound file attached). I signed up, followed the instructions to associate my AT&T account with google voice and was off and running and it works great. Now I only signed up for the lite version so I kept my existing phone number and all my calls and texting work as they as they always have, but I'm still a happy camper.

The second personal shortcoming I needed to address was my inability to manage my phone. At any given time I only have a 50/50 chance of actually having my phone on my person. The rest of the time it's in my jacket pocket, the pants I wore yesterday, the laundry, the car... Anywhere but actually with me. To make matters worse, if it is with me there's a good chance it's either dead or dying. You would think that as important as my phone is to my business I would do better. And I am. This is actually a major improvement for me. In the past I've had to buy new phones to replace lost ones. Ones that may or may not have turned up weeks later. The good news was if I missed a call I would now get a text and an email. The bad news was I wasn't always in front of my personal email account and I could still miss an important text from a client. Enter Mightytext. Mightytext is an android app that ties the text functions (sms and mms) to your google account. I installed the app on my phone and installed the chrome extension in my browser, and then the magic began. I received a call from a client... and before my phone even started ringing I had an alert in my browser that Greg was calling. My phone was in the car so it went to voicemail. I received an alert in my browser with the text of the message and the ability to play the message. I did and needed to let Greg know I'd be on my way in 10 minutes. No need to run out to the car I used Mightytext to respond from my browser. Not only could I do that I could see all the text conversions from my phone and respond as needed. Later when I got home I threw the phone on the bed and went off and left it to mysteriously bury itself in the covers. That evening I got an alert in my browser that my battery was about to die. I turned and looked around the room without a clue where this dying phone might be but guess what, from mighty text I could ring my phone. Nifty. This means I don't have to Facebook message my spouse, my friends, or random acquaintances if I need someone to call my phone because it's missing. That night as I was reading a book I wondered if there was a Mightytext app for tablets... There is. Now I can send and receive texts from my tablet and don't have to switch devices. I almost installed Tablet talk but the tie in with chrome really sets Mightytext apart and the ability to get my voicemails as text messages through Voice makes it that much more valuable.