My Twisted Brain

I finally got my invitation to join up with Google Voice a couple of weeks ago. For those of you who aren’t aware, Google is now a phone company (well, almost). Essentially, they provide you with a phone number that you can configure to ring any number of telephones when someone calls that number. It also includes voicemail, cheap long distance (including international), and a ton of other bells and whistles. It’s some of these bells and whistles that got me thinking about Web 3.0.

Those of you (all 1 of you…on a good day) that keep an eye on this blog may have noticed a new addition recently. If you look down below the blog roll on the right sidebar, you’ll notice a new “Call Me” widget.

Clicking it gives you a place to enter your phone number and name. When you click “Connect”, Google calls you, then calls me and announces your name, and connects the two of us together. You just called me from my blog! It will ring me on my cellphone, home phone, work phone, and whatever phones I choose to configure Google Voice with. It’s cool, and scary, and very Web 3.0 (I think).

Another feature is the voicemail transcription. When you call my Google Voice number and I don’t answer, Google Voice takes your voice message just as most phone accounts would. However, after you hang up a little magic happens. Google Voice transcribes your message into an email that it sends to my gmail account (or any other account or accounts that I specify) and sends an SMS message to my cellphone, with the text of the voice mail. I can read what you just told me in your voice mail. Very cool, and again, very Web 3.0.

As our voice and text worlds become increasingly intertwined, there are increasing opportunities, I think, for connectivist style education and collaborative experiences. We can connect with our fellow learners however we want to, and they can receive our messages however they want to. We will no longer have to leave a voicemail message because we know that Ludwig doesn’t check email very often. We’ll be able to email him a voice message that he gets as a voicemail on his phone! We will no longer have to email someone who refuses to get a cellphone, but has access to email at their neighborhood WiFi hotspot (I know someone like this, don’t laugh). We’ll be able to send their Google Voice account a voice mail, and they’ll read it within 5 minutes. The lines are blurring day by day, and the ID crowd needs to step up and take advantage of the new “mashups”.