Keep in touch without being in touch
From the work-at-home freelancer, to the privacy-minded individual hesitant to share an actual mobile phone number with contacts, the internet provides an incredible number of solutions to keep in touch with others. Forget your personal number the next time you have to hand out actual digits. Make use of the - often free - resources online in order to keep in touch with contacts.
Maintain some degree of separation between work and play. Doing so will alleviate the burden of work from creeping into your personal life.
Straight to voicemail
Although questionably unprofessional, disposable or temporary numbers which send callers directly to voicemail have proven to be a valuable method for pre-screening contacts. Oftentimes, you may find yourself in a scenario which requires some type of alternative correspondence option aside from a standard email address.
Disposable voicemail-only numbers act as an intermediary for individuals which you have yet to discern between being an arbitrary stranger or a bona fide contact.
Of the handful of free voicemail solutions available to internet users - including AIM Digits and K7 Unified Messaging - the personal recommendation is NetZero’s Privatephone service.
NetZero’s Privatephone service offers users with a wider selection of area code options in comparison to AIM Digits or K7. Privatephone users also enjoy the convenience new voicemail notifications via email or mobile handset text messages.
VoIP call forwarding
Somewhat tedious to setup, VoIP call forwarding may be a viable solution for maintaining personal number secrecy while allowing contacts to reach you at any given moment. For €30 or $38 US a year, you can register a SkypeIn phone number. Skype users can then offer their SkypeIn number as a valid alternative rather than handing a mobile number. Contacts attempting to contact you via SkypeIn
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Kyle Schembri
schembri.ca
What about skype? I don’t believe you can forward directly to voicemail, but it does come in handy.
Aug 13th, 2006 Quote
Kyle Schembri
Sorry I missed the bottomhalf of your post
Aug 13th, 2006 Quote
Regi Ellis
jinlabs.net
I guess it beats going the 800 number route
Aug 16th, 2006 Quote
Jeremy D
Yeah there are a bunch out there. Found this other one called MyAdBox. More niche, it’s for classified advertisers, but seems pretty cool.
Sep 6th, 2006 Quote
neb
Grandcentral is what I use for free voicemail service. You can have one local number that forwards through multiple phone-lines, cell and email. You could even program different messages for certain numbers. I can’t explain everything. But check it out.
I also have a SkypeIn number that you could foward to Grandcentral as a secure proxy.
Screen all your calls! Sorry…
check it out.
(^_^)
Oct 30th, 2007 Quote