As Lifehacker is reporting, Google Voice has just opened up its fantastic, feature-filled voicemail to any phone number (pending that you have a Google Voice account). You can now finally free your voicemail from your cellphone service provider.
You just have to scrounge up an invitation for Google Voice and then you can have your current phone number's voicemails routed through Google's servers and enjoy the voicemail transcribing, archiving, and straight-to-SMS (or email) forwarding features.
The promo video points out the significance of this service, which is that your voicemails, which belong to you after all, can be kept through carriers switches. Somehow I get the feeling that some cellphone providers might be a tad ticked off at Google for removing a major hassle of switching elsewhere, but all the better for the users. [Google Voice Blog via Lifehacker]