You've been invited to Google Voice

"You are invited to open a free Google Voice account. To accept this invitation and create your account, visit ..." This is the email message I've been waiting to receive.

If you have to ask, what is Google Voice?
Google Voice gives you a single phone number that rings all your phones, saves your voicemail online, and transcribes your voicemail to text. Other cool features include the ability to listen in on messages while they are being left and the ability to make low cost international calls.  You can record custom greetings for your favorite callers or block annoying callers by marking them as SPAM. 

Google Voice Setup Screen Shots

Once your are invited, the first step is to choose a new Google Voice phone number.  You can search for available "vanity" numbers that include keywords as a part of the new number.  You can search by word or number and area code or ZIP code or just one or the other. Yes, all the good ones are gone but I was able to select a number in my area code that ends with 3-6584 or "e-mktg".

After confirming your new number and accepting terms it is time to tell Google Voice where to forward calls.  You can choose as many
numbers as you like.  You can change the numbers anytime through the online interface.  I started with my home, office and cellular numbers and temporarily added a hotel room number. 

For each phone number you will need to be able to answer a phone call from Google and input the  confirmation code that is provided online.

It's that easy.

How can you get Google Voice?
Go to http://www.google.com/voice and wait for your invitation.  Unlike Gmail, Orkut and Wave, Google does not let current users invite new users. UPDATE as of November 5:  Google Voice is now letting some users send invitations to up to 20 people.