Droid + Verizon + Google Voice = Great Potential, But Think Before Porting

I was one of the people that got really spun up about the Droid.  Why? partly I wasn’t going the AT&T route for an iPhone (every iPhone user I talk to sounds terrible and/or the call drops) but mostly it was because Verizon finally had a strong Android handset and Android interfaces closely with Google Voice. 

I like Google Voice.  A lot.  I am one of those people eagerly waiting for some of the FCC smoke to clear so I can port my number into Google Voice.  That’s where the Verizon + Google Voice + Moto Droid landscape is close to great, but not quite there.  And the shortcoming in my opinion is around how Verizon and Google have coordinated the launch of the Droid but have omitted Google Voice from their story to the 100,000 people who have bought this phone, some of whom are interested in using Google Voice with Android on Verizon.

If you are thinking of porting your number to Verizon with an idea that you’d port it later to Google Voice, you might want to wait.  My thoughts as to why after the jump…

A Complicated Issue

The Droid rocks - enough people have described this that I’m not going to try to review it.  Verizon’s network is consistent and fast.  For most of the 100,000 Droid purchasers that is probably enough.  Some fraction of that population is interested in Google Voice.  And when that smaller group jumps from their old carrier to Verizon to get this iPhone competitor with Android and Google Voice integration they will have a question:

While I wait to port my number to Google Voice, should I port it to Verizon in the meantime?

It’s a question that attempts to resolve both Google’s ambiguous messaging about their intentions for allowing inbound number porting as well as Verizon’s policy for allowing out-bound number porting for users who do not wish to terminate their subscription to Verizon.

This gets complicated and I don’t know how to share it more succinctly.  Verizon can’t fully answer the question, but I don’t think it is their fault.  Here’s what I know thus far:

• Google Voice has hinted at allowing number porting sometime soon, and even let Arrington over at TechCrunch do a one-off port of his cell number into their service. 
• Verizon announces the Droid just in time to give AT&T some holiday competition.  Combined Google/Verizon marketing muscle vault Android further into the mainstream consideration set.
• Google announces that you can Use Google Voice With Your Existing Number however this is basically a call forward on busy/no-answer scheme, effectively giving a limited featureset to users who won’t ditch their old cell #.  Features that get omitted in this configuration include call filtering, ringing multiple phones and some SMS functionality that differentiate Google Voice from other services like PhoneTag, YouMail and Ribbit Mobile.
• Droid launches.  100,000 or more people buy it, including me.  I call Verizon to ask, “hey can I port my cel # into your system and then port it out again when GVoice allows me to port it to them?”
  • Verizon gets confused and wasn’t prepared for this question, however tries really hard to help. 
  • I was told by one rep that their system tends to look at porting a number out to any other service as a contract termination.
  • I told the rep the situation would be that I wouldn’t be trying to cancel, however I would be trying to port my number to Google to use the integrated GVoice capability with Verizon.
  • The rep told me to hold on; that he had an idea to try it as a number change so the Verizon number could be freed up to port yet NOT cancel my subscription to Verizon itself.  I appreciate this creativity.  Moreover he kicked this up to a tech support person who actually tried to look up Google in a system of other carriers that they could port to.  According to Verizon, Google’s not there - at least not right now.
• Verizon didn’t know what else to do and said that I should contact Google to ask. Google doesn’t make this easy; their Google Voice blog has a link to “Send us a message” that goes to their general help forum.  This irks me because I feel the number porting issue is of a different tier than just a specific software function that users might want to chat about in a forum.  Porting a number is a real issue with financial consequences and logistical considerations.

At this point I have two conclusions:

Conclusion 1 As A New Verizon Subscriber: I am not porting my number to Verizon until I see a clearer pathway to outbound porting.  I have no issues with Verizon but I fear that just changing my Verizon line from number1 to number2 will free up number1 into a general pool where anyone could grab it.  That process seems different than an explicit outbound port.  In the meantime I will likely need to use a park-and-forward service to hold the number until the situation with Google Voice clarifies a bit.

Conclusion 2 As A Google Voice User: I feel that Google’s attempt to entice users to “Use Google Voice With Our Own Number” is a confusing message and that they need to be more explicit.  I appreciate the intent but it confuses users and it muddies their competitive position relative to companies like PhoneTag and Ribbit Mobile. 

I will get on my soapbox for a second as both a product and marketing guy…Put simply, just talk to me.  Some people call it customer-focused rollout, etc. but it boils down to this: Just tell me what your intentions are and I can make decisions from there.  Not telling me causes me to hedge, wait to adopt and get frustrated with you.  It lowers my trust in you.  As you deploy products that integrate deeper into my life, like phone service, you need to earn my trust whether or not your model is fremium, ad supported or otherwise.

We’re entering an era where the level of customization offered by platforms like Android is tremendously empowering to more and more consumers however the support systems aren’t there and that places more burden on the product / marketing functions to communicate clearly.  I know Google has a history of not foreshadowing features too far into the future however there is value in being explicit about tying your products like Google Voice and Android together - or not - so your users can make decisions. 

Talk to me, and I will trust you more.

Verizon MiFi 2200: Coolest Thing Since TiVo

I was never really motivated to get one of those 3G laptop modem cards, partly because you have to fit it to a single computer.  This means one person at a time, and to boot some of the cards have format restrictions like Express Card, PCMCIA, etc. And then you have this weird appendage sticking out of the side of your computer, just waiting to get snapped off.

When I saw the MiFi 2200 however I was immediately intrigued.  We have a family road trip coming this summer and I’ve been thinking about how to stay connected without hunting for spotty Wi-Fi everywhere we go.  So I bought it and am blown away…

First of all, Verizon’s 3G network is all that they’d have you believe: good coverage from what I’ve seen and speeds comparable to basic DSL or cable service.  The Novatel device (MiFi 2200) itself rocks: It is shirt-pocket small, chargeable via USB and has its own battery (~4hr life) to work untethered.  It can install its own software to your PC via USB so no disks.  It runs cool so you can put it in a water-proof case in a boat and not worry about it cooking itself.  Oh, and it supports 5 separate PCs at one time, via Wi-Fi.

This opens up the use cases significantly over a wireless laptop card: My wife’s iPod Touch is now truly mobile.  My Wi-Fi blackberry now has an alternate coverage provider besides T-Mobile.  My Macbook Air (which sports only one pop-out USB port and therefore is NOT a good wireless card mounting platform) now has an effortless companion link to the internet.  We’ve already found ourselves taking this device on business trips, on random outings and even to the kids’ weekend swimming classes as a way to send email.

I remember my first digital video recorder and how it felt like a reckless purchase.  It turned out to redefine the way I interact with TV.  I think this device has the potential to do the same for the way we interact with the internet.  I’ve already cancelled one of our less fruitful wine club memberships to offset the $60/month Verizon data plan, I’m hooked.

Update on Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 04:41PM by Christian

Update: I still love this device but I should point out that under heavy use it does get warm and has no forced cooling to keep it out in the open.  If placed in a case it may self-cook before you realize it.

Update: Parrot vs. BlueAnt Supertooth III

Just a quick update on our dual trial of the Parrot MINIKIT and BlueAnt Supertooth III: The BlueAnt device is superior in operation and battery life.  After the Parrot “checked out” on my wife we now own TWO BlueAnt ST3’s.  We have a third car where the Parrot can live, but for our daily drivers it’s BlueAnt.

Ultimate Home Vociemail

Back when I traveled a lot I tried out this new service called SimulScribe because it represented a much better way to triage and return voicemail after landing at the airport, where it is difficult to write down voicemails you have received in-flight and return the calls as you catch a cab.  Now called PhoneTag (sorry guys, your new brand just doesn’t resonate with me so I’m going to refer to it as SimulScribe hereforward) the service takes voicemail and transcribes it as text which is sent to you as an email, along with the original attachment should you need to hear it yourself.  It is very accurate and as much a “life changer” as TiVo is for TV viewing. 

I was so enthusiastic that I got my wife an account of her own for her birthday and we are now happy users.  We wanted to apply the same functionality to our home phone to deal with the endless stream of soccer practice updates, voicemails from the kids’ school, playdate proposals from BFFs (best-friends-forever), etc.  but without paying for a third account.  We found a way to do so by capitalizing on one of SimulScribe’s most useful features.  Read on…

Solution: if you have one SimulScribe account and live by yourself, you can just set your home phone to “call-forward-no-answer” to your SimulScribe number.  Since we have two SimulScribe accounts and can’t forward a call to two places at once, we use a service that creates .wav files from incoming voicemail and forward our home phone to it (we use uReach but there are others including free options if I recall).  uReach then blasts that .wav files to both our SimulScribe accounts and we get the messages left at home along with our personal voicemail left on our cellphones.

The ability of SimulScribe to accept voicemail via inbound calls forwarded to a unique number or as .wav files is a key differentiator that multiplies the utility of the service.  When I was working at a company with a corporate phone system that sent voicemail as .wav files I was able to send that to my SimulScribe account as well, effectively getting voicemail from three phone numbers on my BlackBerry.  Perfect!

Reminiscent of Apple’s “PC Guy” ads, SimulScribe has done a couple of ads that take shots at Apple’s visual voicemail for the iPhone.  The video below is representative of some ads that SimulScribe has run…

Super Bluetooth

BlueAnt Supertooth IIIHere in California as the much publicized cellphone laws have gone into effect I’ve had to start wearing my earbud.  All the time.  Now while my earbud - a Plantronics 910 - is a great earbud, when I used it in the car previously it was more for when I had a big call to do.  Short “yes I’m on my way home” calls didn’t warrant the earbud in my mind.

For the past few weeks I’ve been wearing it religiously and it’s kind of a pain to do that: I don’t like having to carry an earbud and then either be faced with the job of keeping track of the darn thing - they’re small - or wearing it all the time and looking like “one of the earbud people.”   Some people still aren’t sure if it’s good to have a transmitter on the side of your head either.  So, we bought a portable battery powered bluetooth speakerphone for our two non-speakerphone commuter cars.  Our first was a Parrot Minikit, and the other was the BlueAnt Supertooth III. 

While there are blueooth speakerphone kits that integrate with your car’s radio system (made by Parrot and other companies) we didn’t want to do anything that invasive, especially not being sure how well they would sound.  Both speaker phones are designed to clip onto your car’s visor and go for at least 10 hours of talking between charges.  Both sound good and are easy to use.  Below are my initial observations after using both speakerphones, focusing on the differences:

Parrott Minikit

• A little bigger than the Supertooth, but may fit on some visors better because its “footprint” is deeper whereas the Supertooth is more horizontal.
• Nice easy to use knob for adjusting volume whereas the Supertooth has volume up/down buttons.

BlueAnt Supertooth III

• Lighter.
• Seems louder than the Parrot, which is a plus in noisy cars.  If you have an ultra-quiet luxury sedan this won’t be a problem but then your luxury sedan probably has bluetooth in it already.
• The clip attaches/detaches via a magnet to the Supertooth which I like BUT on cars with “poofy” visors it means your Supertooth’s magnets may not fully click into the clip because the visor’s padding may separate the Supertooth from the low-profile clip.  Fortunately the Supertooth’s magnets are strong so it still clings pretty good.
• While both have an auto-off if they lose your phone’s signal the Supertooth also has an “auto on” - when it senses vibration in your car (e.g. as you close the door) it wakes up just enough to look for your phone.  If it finds your phone it then powers up and connects.  This is a really cool feature and also works if you are on your phone when you walk up to your car — it will switch over automatically. 
  
• Supertooth can announce callers by name or caller ID by syncing with your phone’s address book and doing text-to-speech.  Not sure if the Minikit can do that.  Although the Supertooth’s pronounciation is not perfect (not is it’s address book syncing) it is nice to have a sense of who is calling you.
  
• The Supertooth’s Send/End buttons are more clearly labeled than the Parrot’s.  The Parrot’s blink either red or green depending on the buttons but during the day it’s hard to see that blink and tell which button does what.  The Supertooth is very clearly labeled.
• Both have a voice dial capability but I haven’t tried that yet.
  

Summary: I really like the Supertooth and now my wife feels I shorted her with the Parrot since we bought that first for her car.  The Parrot is not a bad speakerphone at all but we’ll probably end up buying another Supertooth and relegating the Parrot to our 3rd car.