So I've been trying out GrandCentral ever since I picked up the rumors from a couple of weeks ago that Google was looking to buy them up. Very nice "all-in-one-number" phone service. I especially enjoyed the ability to upload any MP3 and have it played to people calling me (instead of the standard "ringback" signal).

Well, the Google rumors were not exaggerated, as all of the pages now say "GrandCentral Beta from Google."

And what's the first casualty? The custom ringback signals! Arrrrghh!! I smell RIAA at work...

Oh well, that's just a small part of the service. All of the other cool things still seem to be there—forward to up to 6 numbers simultaneously, choose which incoming calls can ring which phones, choose which incoming calls can hear which voice mail greetings, filter phone solicitations with a "spam filter," just to name a few. So I'll stick with it for now, until they start charging exorbitant fees for it all.

Tags: google, grandcentral, phone services, riaa