I have been fascinated with integrating telephone support into one of my next projects ever since I meet the guys over at Ribbit during Flash On Tap. About two weeks ago I received an email telling me I got a google voice account. The timing couldn't be better.

If you are not familiar with google voice here is a quick rundown from their site:

Google Voice Basics: About Google VoicePrint

Google Voice gives you one number for all your phones -- a phone number that is tied to you, not to a device or a location. Use Google Voice to simplify the way you use phones, make using voicemail as easy as email, customize your callers' experience, and more.

Google Voice isn't a phone service, but it lets you manage all of your phones. Google Voice works with mobile phones, desk phones, work phones, and VoIP lines. There's nothing to download, upload, or install, and you don't have to make or take calls using a computer.

Google Voice will let you define which phones ring, based on who's calling, and even let you listen in on voicemail before answering the call. We use smart technology to route your calls. So, if you're already on a Google Voice call, we'll recognize it and use call waiting to reach you on the phone you're on.

Note: At this time Google Voice is only available in the U.S.

The best part of google voice is that it's free, for the most part. Making calling in the US to US is free along with text messaging and visual voice mail. Since the price was right I quickly whipped together a prototype of what can be done with the voicemail system.

When you pick your number on Google Voice you can route it to any physical phone number you like or keep it as a virtual answering service. I chose to do the latter and created (347) bum-1job.

I also setup a simple wordpress site called Bum1Job. The idea for this site is to create a Flash support hotline for my alter ego, the Flash Bum. When people call (347) bum-1job they are invited to leave a question for the Flash Bum. The questions are posted on the site and not only does the Flash Bum provide answers but other people are encouraged to do so as well through the answer (comments) form.

I wanted to highlight a few interesting features I used on Google Voice. First off when I receive a new message I have it email me a notice to an account setup just for the site. Then I review the message. Google voice's visual email works just like email. You have a list of unplayed messages, an option to preview them and a text description of what Google Voice thinks the person said. I use the work think since the accuracy of the speech to text is very poor. Any background noise or accents will throw the convertor off. In my case the illogical message descriptions work in my sites favor but for real world use it may be sub par. Messages to difficult for Google Voice to transcribe simply come up as Transcript not available.

When it comes to posting the message on my blog, Google provides a few tools to help but they were hidden under the more tab below each message. There you'll find an option to download or embed the mp3. At first I simply downloaded the message and used a custom player for my site but now I use the embed wizard since it is easy to use and is one less step for me to do. Plus Google can deal with my bandwidth and hosting the messages. Here is a sample of the translation and embed player:

Hello inside Rio Reader. This is Jesse frame in. Just wanted to give you a quick demo. What a voicemail. Sounds like on google voice and what it looks like an bedded as well as it's attend to translate this message. Hope you came out right.

One subtle touch about the Google Voice playback system you use when checking your messages is that it highlights the text words above the player as it plays back. Unfortunately the embedable player doesn't have this feature but I hope it will be made public later because it is a really slick effect.

Google Voice from an RIA implementation standpoint is very bare bones. There is no formal API or clear way to embed the calling, SMS, and message tools into your own app. Also, the current user license is for non-commecial usage. I am sure this will change in time, Google is usually very good about creating easy to use open source tools and APIs. As of now Ribbit's phone APIs are very robust and easily extended/customizable but at a cost. I did find the following resources that talk about hacking together an API: http://posttopic.com/topic/google-voice-add-on-development.

So where will this go and what is the potential? I feel that adding phone support to AIR applications or Flash/Flex sites has advantages in the right setting. It really depends on the project but phone books, banner ads, contests, and web based skype-like apps that can be 100% customized/branded are the obvious directions. Large companies may have a need for these kinds of things and since Google Voice can rout, mask, and localize any number there may be some cost savings when using this service. Small companies may be able to take advantage of this.

When it comes to using Google Voice as a fee phone connection I found the quality to be sub par even though the person who called me through it said I sounded clear. I am sure all the kinks will be worked out as this becomes more main stream. Meanwhile, when more robust versions of the Flash Player show up on phones/mobil devices people will be able to bypass their own cellular mins and make calls directly from the flash app. I am sure the cell phone companies will try to stop it but it's already a part of the technical ecosystem thanks to Skype.

These are exciting times to be developing RIAs. All the barriers of the old mediums like print, tv, and now phones have transitioned over to the internet and been improved along the way to the point where the old mediums are almost irrelevant. It's only natural that traditional landlines will be put on the extinction chopping block. I never thought I would see the day where Flash would have the potential to replace my home phone. Looks like Google is building quite a communication empire for us to all play with. It's a good thing Google's motto is "don't be evil" because I would hate to see all of these transcribed phone messages fall into the wrong hands.

Read more from Jesse Freeman.