An issue that continually comes up for GeekDad contributors concerns interviews, or, more specifically, the best way to capture them. While email-based text interviews are a natural fit for the blogging platform, most subjects have neither the time nor the inclination to type out full responses for a proper interview feature. This means, of course, that many interviews will instead take place via telephone or Skype.
The latter seldom proves problematic—occasional Skype call quality issues notwithstanding—as Skype recording software has become fairly ubiquitous. Phoners, on the other hand, can still be a pain. There are dedicated recording devices, apps and homebrew recording solutions that work with varying results and equally varied degrees of difficulty, but a simple solution for call recording exists within the Google Voice service.
By this point most Google Voice users already have their GV number routing calls to their mobile or landline of choice, so enabling the recording of incoming calls is easy enough; just check the box beside “Enable recording (4)…” in the Settings–>Calls menu to activate this feature.
Depending on your own personal user preferences the incoming call process could differ slightly, but typically (as Call Screening on is the default setting) the incoming caller will state his/her name and you will be asked by the Google Voice robo-operator to accept the call. With the call connected, simply press 4 on the keypad to begin recording. It will continue to record until the call is disconnected or until manually stopped, again by pressing 4. The captured audio file will be available via the Google Voice web interface, where you can listen or download directly at your leisure.
There are, of course, a few caveats. First, the trick only works for inbound calls. This shouldn’t be an issue, though, as most interviewees are more inclined to call in (or have their PR contacts dial them in) than provide their own contact information. Also, Google Voice doesn’t seem to even attempt to auto-transcribe captured calls. Though those with experience with their transcription service likely won’t lament this. Lastly, the audio files themselves are very low quality: 16kbps.
Still, for those looking to record on the fly and on the cheap, this is an incredibly useful solution.
