Have you ever wondered who does the spiffy voice menu that you hear when accessing your voicemail? Well, keep wondering. Google has decided that the professional sounding approach just wasn’t groovy, and so they’ve let the Google Voice team temporarily kidnap a lovely lady from their consumer products division to do some amateur voice acting. The result? You’ll have to hear it for yourself.
The new voice of Google is Kiki Baessell, aka the spam fighter extraordinaire who usually handles abuse for Google consumer products. She has no experience in voice acting but she can talk, and her voice is nice so, SOLD! The idea is that the Voice team figured it would be best to hear a friendly co-worker when you pick up your phone, not the overtly pronouncing “I’m better at talking than you” voice actor, as we’re accustomed to hearing.
I have to say; she does sound rather friendly, and I find myself checking my voicemail more often than ever before (I wonder if she’s single?)
If you haven’t yet heard the new menu, you can listen to a sample of her voice below.
The new voice of Google Voice [via theGoogleOS.com]
5 Comments
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Walter
Is there a way to use Google Voice to record and email a voice message to someone? I can do it with TrulyMail but sometimes I like to be able to do things from the web.
JM
Yes. See the “share voicemails” video at the following page:
http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html#
MrGroove
@JM – Great tip. Nice collection of Help Videos. nice FYI
Robert
It’s true, defying convention by having a total non-professional do this was a stroke of genius. Kiki’s pleasant, “normal” way of speaking is one of the best things about Google Voice.
MrGroove
agreed 10 fold. I was playing around with Google Voice today and I found her voice soothing if I were to choose a word. Definitely a nice change from the norm.