Google Voice Invites Begin Trickling Out

Google Voice, which was relaunched in March from the "ashes" of GrandCentral, has remained closed to non-GrandCentral users since then. On Thursday, Google announced it was again beginning to give out invitations to the still-not-fully-public service.

Since Google had gone months since adding any new users, you can see that there is probably quite a backlog of requests for entry queued up. In their blog post announcing the move, Google said:

We are happy to share that Google Voice is beginning to open up beyond former GrandCentral users. If you requested an invitation on the Google Voice site or previously on GrandCentral, keep your eye out for an invite email.

Once you receive your invitation, just click on the link and follow the instructions to setup your new Voice account. To help you find a Google number that is personalized to you, we've added a number picker that lets you search by area code and text. See if you can find a number that contains your name, a specific word or a number combination.

Now that's something new, the number picker. Previously you selected an area code and it would just give you a list of numbers. Dang, I would have picked any old area code if I could get some word or phrase for myself.

At any rate, the post above indicates that Google isn't opening the service up to just anyone yet. I could see a major landrush if they did.

Check out the Google Voice intro video below: