At the last count I had two active mobile phone numbers (BlackBerry and iPhone), two VoIP home phone lines, office phone and fax lines, five voicemail boxes, three instant messaging accounts and a handful of social networking accounts including Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

It is increasingly tricky and time-consuming to manage this expanding, complex web of personal communications services. But help may be at hand. Over the past week I have been testing some of the new software tools and services designed to help individuals regain control over personal communications.

In particular, I have been checking out two of the new free services – Google Voice, launched as an “invitation only” beta or trial version last month, and VoxOx 2, which launched this week as an open beta available to everyone.