Hey, you can get voice on this gizmo!

So, late last night I got an e-mail from Gizmo5, nee Gizmo Project. I had installed their software a long time ago but never really used it much. Most of my friends already had contact information on other IM services.

Well, this e-mail was a bit different. To wit, Gizmo has gone into partnership with Google Voice, so that you can list your Gizmo5 number as one of your Google Voice numbers and take incoming calls on it. They trumpet that this is a "$60 value," comparing it to what Skype charges for their SkypeIn incoming phone line service.

I went ahead and set it up, and by golly it really does work. But the really interesting thing is one of the little footnotes about "Gizmo Voice": to wit, you can take incoming calls as long as you like, but you can only make outbound calls up to 3 minutes in length through the Gizmo 5 application unless you send them some money.

The interesting thing is that, as anyone who has used Google Voice knows, if you make an "outgoing" call using Google Voice's web interface, Google Voice rings you on your landline, cell, or (now) Gizmo phone of choice. So, even an outbound call will count as an "inbound" call on Gizmo as long as it is placed through Google Voice. With that in mind, why would you ever want to give Gizmo money again?

(Another interesting thing is that you can set Gizmo to forward incoming calls to an account on Skype or Google Voice. However, if you do that you'll lose the ability to make a selection from the "Call Presentation" menu—neither of those will give you a dialpad for incoming calls.)

Hey, you can get voice on this gizmo!

So, late last night I got an e-mail from Gizmo5, nee Gizmo Project. I had installed their software a long time ago but never really used it much. Most of my friends already had contact information on other IM services.

Well, this e-mail was a bit different. To wit, Gizmo has gone into partnership with Google Voice, so that you can list your Gizmo5 number as one of your Google Voice numbers and take incoming calls on it. They trumpet that this is a "$60 value," comparing it to what Skype charges for their SkypeIn incoming phone line service.

I went ahead and set it up, and by golly it really does work. But the really interesting thing is one of the little footnotes about "Gizmo Voice": to wit, you can take incoming calls as long as you like, but you can only make outbound calls up to 3 minutes in length through the Gizmo 5 application unless you send them some money.

The interesting thing is that, as anyone who has used Google Voice knows, if you make an "outgoing" call using Google Voice's web interface, Google Voice rings you on your landline, cell, or (now) Gizmo phone of choice. So, even an outbound call will count as an "inbound" call on Gizmo as long as it is placed through Google Voice. With that in mind, why would you ever want to give Gizmo money again?

(Another interesting thing is that you can set Gizmo to forward incoming calls to an account on Skype or Google Voice. However, if you do that you'll lose the ability to make a selection from the "Call Presentation" menu—neither of those will give you a dialpad for incoming calls.)