Remember when Google first started Gmail and you had to have an invitation to get in? It’s going to be the same kind of deal with Google Voice.
Google Voice, if you haven’t heard of it yet, is a free Web-based application that lets you control all your various phone numbers — work, home, mobile, you name it–from a single, central phone number and Web page. It also includes most of the features of a PBX (Private Branch Exchange)–call forwarding, voice mail, call recording–for free.
Until recently the only way you could get Google Voice was to have been a user of its predecessor service, GrandCentral. Starting immediately, Google is finally letting more users into the service.
Don’t get too excited yet though. Sources at Google tell me that, “We are planning to start a gradual roll out of invitations to people who signed up on our Google Voice wait list. This won’t be open, general availability.”