# FYI, one no longer needs invites for Google Voice

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fyi-one-no-longer-needs-invites-for-google-voice/544146>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [June 22, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fyi-one-no-longer-needs-invites-for-google-voice/544146 "2010-06-22T18:13:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fyi-one-no-longer-needs-invites-for-google-voice/544146/1 "2010-06-22T18:13:07Z")

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[http://voice.google.com](http://voice.google.com)

> **[Google Voice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Voice)**
>
> Google Voice is a telephone service that provides a U.S. phone number to Google Account customers in the U.S. and Google Workspace (G Suite by October 2020) customers in Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the contiguous United States. It is used for call forwarding and voicemail services, voice and text messaging, as well as U.S. and international calls. Calls are forwarded to the phone number that each user must configu Googl...

“Google Voice is a telecommunications service by Google[1] launched on March 11, 2009. The service provides a U.S. phone number, chosen by the user from available numbers in selected area codes, free of charge to each user account. Inbound calls to this number are forwarded to other phone numbers of the subscriber. Outbound calls may be placed to domestic and international destinations by dialing the Google Voice number or from a web-based application.[2] Inbound and outbound calls to U.S. (including Alaska and Hawaii) and Canada are free of charge.[3] International calls are billed according to a schedule posted on the Google Voice website.”

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**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\
**Post date:** [June 24, 2010, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fyi-one-no-longer-needs-invites-for-google-voice/544146/2 "2010-06-24T21:03:57Z")

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So what does Google get out of this? There’s not much opportunity for ads.

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**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fyi-one-no-longer-needs-invites-for-google-voice/544146/3 "2010-06-25T04:20:30Z")

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> [@JSexton](#):
>
> So what does Google get out of this? There’s not much opportunity for ads.

An ever expanding user base;  
[ul]  
[li]that will now (hopefully) use Google for more and more of their online services[/li][li]thus spending more and more time on “Google” (meaning all of Google services)[/li][li]making Google advertising that much more far reaching and ubiquitous[/li][li]therefore making advertising on Google more important to advertisers[/li][/ul]

In other words - do anything to keep them in your store.