Google Voice opens to everybody! Everybody in the US, that is.

Google Voice, Google's very useful call-forwarding-slash-voice-mail-slash-transcription service, has finally opened to everyone! Well, everyone in the United States, that is. I know we Americans sometimes act like we're the center of the universe, but plenty of users in other countries can't wait to get their hands on Voice. Even our intrepid editor Lee Mathews can't get it yet, and he's just a border away in Canada. Bummer!

Voice has been mostly invite-only since launch, but it opened to college students and the military for a while, too. If this will be your first time using Google Voice, check out some of the features before you get started: SMS-to-Email, using Voice with your existing number and more are explained on this Google Voice help page.

Does Google Voice opening up to everyone signal the upcoming launch of that new Google Voice web app Lee was predicting?

Tags: google voice, GoogleVoice, phone, voicemail, voip