Google Eats Grand Central

I received an email from Grand Central a few days ago alerting me to the fact that they were bought by the Juggernaut of all online Juggernauts: Google. Here are some excerpts from the email:

We're now part of Google!

We wanted to let you know that GrandCentral has been acquired by Google! We're particularly excited about this because it ensures that not only will we have the resources to continue to bring you even more innovative communications features down the road, but that we will be able to continue to offer you the service, with many features for free, for a long time to come.

Now that Google is running the show, they have locked down the beta. The only way you can get in is now by invite-only. Current users can only invite five people. (Glad I got in on the "ground floor" and don't have to deal with asking around for invites.)

Our priority now is to ensure that you, our current beta users, continue to have a great user experience. While we scale the service, we are moving to an invitation-only model for new users. If you're a registered user today, you can invite five of your friends to join. In addition, GrandCentral will continue to remain entirely free as we work with Google to add capacity, work out any kinks, fix bugs, and add a ton more great features. We hope you continue using the service and send us feedback about anything we can do to improve it.

Though I am pleased to see a large, well-known internet company back Grand Central I am concerned about the direction the service will now take. I'm sure Google will start charging for features and stripping the free service of all the "free". Heck, they've already shut down the ability to upload your own ringtones and now force you to buy ringtones from them... Ouch.

I have my fingers crossed and am hoping that Google doesn't screw up this otherwise great service.