Google Now Lets You Export Google Voice Data | Hacker News Reader

Google Now Lets You Export Google Voice Data

techcrunch.com

43 pointseokuma11 comments

I'd prefer it if DLF would flip the switch that would let chats in Gmail be exported. There's still no way to do that.

This is great, now I can machine-learn years of text messages and create something that replies to future text for me...

Wouldn't this allow someone to create a cheapo version of Cisco's Unity? (As in voicemails showing up in your Outlook inbox...for those that haven't been subjected to Unity.)

Google voicemails already show up in my gmail. You should just be able to set up a filter to forward them to another address.

I haven't tried it though, so YMMV.

Why would you want to export the data? to save voicemails?

Because it's yours?

Of course, there's a difference between why you would want to export your data and why you would want the ability to export your data.

Yeah, I would want the ability to do that, if you're adding some sort of data to a site then would that be a given? That you have some way of actually exporting the data that YOU put into it?

That wasn't actually my question here, though. My comment is actually about accessing it--why not just go directly to the service to access the voicemail?

Because you're not locked into the google voice service. You can stop using it and not risk having to lose all of the information that you had stored and created using google voice.

Probably because these services won't be around forever. It's relatively common for online services to vanish, even the ones that had been extremely popular (Geocities, for instance), and if all of your data is locked in, you lose it along with the service.

The Data Liberation Front seems to be trying to untie your data from the services that use it, because it's yours and can still be valuable to you after you've stopped using said service.

[Edit: Why wouldn't you want to export data?]

Yeah as well as text messages, phone numbers (for importation into other contact systems) etc. backed-up and archived for work/business (even personal) purposes.

I'd like to be able to export the data so I have a backup in case Google accidentally loses some of my data, or locks me out of my account. I suppose if you totally trust Google then it might not be such a useful feature. Although I could also imagine it being nice if you want to switch to some other service in the future that resembles GV and allows you to import your old GV data.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com