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Google Voice Now Gives Priority to Students

Posted by timothy on from the hang-onto-your-alumni-vanity-address dept.

theodp writes "Holy Logan's Run, Batman! Google on Friday began giving students priority access to its Google Voice service, which has remained in a closed beta since its transition from GrandCentral in March of last year. Typically, invites for the service can take anywhere from a few hours to several months to arrive after a user signs up. But Google is now promising students who cough up an .edu e-mail address access to the service within 24 hours. Good thing CMU closes e-mail accounts after graduation, or old fuddy-duddy alums like Brian Reid might try to sneak in!"

10 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Outside of USA by ProfMobius · · Score: 3, Informative
    But Google is now promising students who cough up an .edu e-mail address access to the service within 24 hours.

    So much for all the students around the world who don't have email addresses ending in .edu

    Well, i guess it is time to check if no-ip.com has hosts ending in .edu and set-up a home mail server :)

    --
    EULA : By reading the above message, you agree that I now own your soul.
    1. Re:Outside of USA by mrrockford · · Score: 5, Informative

      From my Google Voice acct: "Note that Google Voice is only available for sign up in the US"

  2. Re:News? by RabbitWho · · Score: 3, Funny

    Everything Google does is news-worthy.

    --
    it's under construction
  3. World is not US of A by i+ate+my+neighbour · · Score: 3, Informative

    My university's domain doesn't end with .edu you insensitive clod!

    1. Re:World is not US of A by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      The reason that they're restricting it to .edu is because Google Voice is only available in the US for everyone. I mean, it still holds that the world isn't the USA, but if Google Voice is only available in the US, then it makes sense to use .edu. Google Voice happens to be a bit of an odd one when it comes to Google's services because voice services and the regulations that go along with them very from country to country - vs. the internet which is mostly unregulated and the same resource in most locations.

    2. Re:World is not US of A by Florian+Weimer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Except that .EDU is open to educational institutions worldwide.

  4. It's actually been quite reliable... by IANAAC · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been using GV (and before that GC) for a bit over a year, and it's been pretty reliable. then again, I only have used it for voicemail. I don't use it for SMS or making calls. Making calls through it just seems convoluted and unnecessary.

  5. the first one's always free by FuckingNickName · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I guess it's like Facebook: target the young crowds, who then grow up thinking privacy policies unimportant when they enter the workplace.

    1. Re:the first one's always free by Albanach · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, I'd rather Google's privacy policy for Voice http://www.google.com/googlevoice/privacy-policy.html over Facebook's privacy policy any day of the week.

  6. How is this not? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One of the biggest IT companies in existance practically introduces a new service (Yeah, it existed before but was pretty unpractical due to those long registering times) for students (A huge amount of us students read this site, you know...)... How is this not exactly the type of news that SlashDot is for? Besides, it is not as if today would have been extraordinarily busy news day or anything. If you don't find it interesting, why waste your time with commenting? Not that you would have spent a lot of time for that as you didn't really write any arguments or such... Yeah. I'm getting pretty annoyed to people karmawhoring with the "How is this news worthy?" comment which you can find on practically every article on SlashDot. I would think of it as a running joke if those wouldn't get flagged +5 insightful pretty much every time.

    Aaaaaanyways. Yeah, its nice that google does that. I would have hoped for something more sophisticated than just checking for .edu addresses, though. Not all students receive such (well, at least not outside USA. I don't know if all universities there use the .edu domain).