Last year, Google began allowing users to upload docs of any file format up to 250 MB in size to Google Docs, turning the service from simply an online word processor into a cloud storage service. Today, the company has unveiled a number of user interface changes for Google Docs that continues the move toward becoming the mythical "Gdrive" - a cloud-based file storage service.

Over the past year, many of you have been taking advantage of the ability to upload any file to Google Docs. With more files and of a variety of file types in one place, it becomes more difficult to organize and find what you need quickly. As a result, we are happy to announce that, over the next couple of days, we'll be rolling out a refresh to the documents list, aimed to make it more useful to find, explore and share all your files stored 100% on the web.

To that end, the new Google Docs includes a view for all of your image and video documents, including an inline preview mode and video player, which the company just announced earlier this month.

In addition to advanced sorting, the redesign includes a bit of "Gmailification," with the abandonment of folders for "collections," which act similarly to Gmail's labels, and a "priority" sorting much like Gmail's Priority Inbox.

"Collections are designed to combine the best features of labels and folders," writes Bangaru. "A file can live in multiple collections, just like with Gmail labels. Collections can also be stored hierarchically, just like folders on your desktop. And of course, collections can be shared, just like you can share docs."

To get a full run down on the new features, take Google's guided tour.

So what is Cloud Picker? Apparently, it's a storage product that ties together several of Google's services - YouTube, Docs, Maps and Picasa photos - to allow for easy insertion of media into other Google services like Blogger and Google Sites. Wait, a Google storage product? Isn't that Gdrive?

Isn't that what Cloud Picker is doing?

Actually, no - at least not to the extent of what Gdrive would have done. Cloud Picker only appears as a pop-up when you go to insert media into Blogger or Sites at this time, according to the forum posts.

In other words, it's a dialog box, not a service.

And frankly, it's not all that different from Microsoft's "Quick Add" functionality, which let you add Maps, Images, Videos or other online media into Windows Live Hotmail. The only difference is that Quick Add content came from Live Search (now Bing) while Cloud Picker pulls from your own files, as opposed to those publicly hosted on Google.com. (Quick Add functionality is no longer just a sidebar - "Insert" buttons in Hotmail serve the same purpose now. There are buttons for inserting Office Docs from Office Web Apps, photos from Bing, etc. When clicked, the sidebar appears.)

Even though Cloud Picker isn't a standalone service, wouldn't it be nice if it were? As a regular Google Docs user, I've personally longed for a single interface that would allow me to manage, edit and share all my Google-hosted files from speadsheets to YouTube videos. Cloud Picker definitely isn't it, but it's a step closer.

As some commenters have already pointed out, integrating Cloud Picker into Google Chrome or Chrome OS would help transition users more fully to the cloud. That would be a good thing, of course, but we're stilling hoping for a Gdrive launch one day, nonetheless.

Like its progenitor, Memeo Connect still offers drag-and-drop uploads, but in the latest release, the application's operating system integration has been dramatically improved. Most notably, your Google Docs folder now appears as a virtual drive that Memeo labels "GDrive", and, according to company representatives, the name is being used with Google's blessing.

To Internet early adopters, the name "GDrive" rings more than a few bells. It's referring to the long-rumored cloud storage service that Google has yet to launch. In its imagined state, Google's GDrive would have been a lot like Microsoft's SkyDrive: several gigabytes of free storage available on the Web for all your files. On the theoretical GDrive, however, files could be in any format, of any size and there would be easy ways to sync them or move them back and forth between your computer and the cloud. Office files would open with Google's Docs service, an online counterpart to desktop programs like Microsoft Office, and some even imagined that GDrive would further integrate with other Google properties, like Picasa for photos or YouTube for videos.

Google never fully realized everyone's GDrive dreams, but its Google Docs service is functional enough for most. It allows for the upload of any file type while multiple third-party services offer decent options for keeping files in sync between your computers and cloud. These include Memeo competitors like Box.net, Dropbox, Syncplicity, SugarSync, OfficeSync, Gladinet and more.

There are few programs that actually offer the full virtual drive functionality that Memeo now does, though. The company worked closely with Google to build this latest version of its Connect software and when Google engineers found out Memeo was calling the virtual folder it creates "GDrive," they had a good laugh.

Sorry, Internet, Google isn't designing its own GDrive service anytime soon, but it's well aware of the rumors.

Google actually prefers that, when it comes to GDrive-type offerings, third parties do it for them. The closest thing we'll see to a Google-branded tool of any sort is a desktop uploader application now being built, sources tell us. But it's no GDrive, based on what we've heard.

Version 2.0: More OS Integration Blurs Line Between Desktop and Cloud

In Memeo's case, version 2.0 of its software continues to offer drag-and-drop uploads (even folders!) and automatic synchronization. But it goes further with a combination of features that make using its so-called GDrive a more viable option. For example, you can save files from your desktop-based applications like Microsoft Office directly to Google Docs via GDrive, and you can open GDrive-hosted files with its associated native desktop program. In other words, it blurs the line between the cloud and the desktop, just as Google's mythical GDrive would have supposedly done. And for that reason, we don't at all begrudge Memeo the name "theft."

Memeo Connect's other new features include the ability to select multiple files at once for deletion (from the cloud), filter files by type or category, download all Google Docs with a click, view folders shared with you via Google Docs and more.

And let's not forget one of the most exciting new features: full text search for documents, another benefit of the in-depth collaboration between Memeo and Google when building this new version of Connect. To truly transition to cloud-hosted files, this feature is considered a must-have for many users.

For Business Users Only?

Memeo Connect is more business-focused than it is a consumer tool. It's not available as a "freemium" offering, as some would expect. Surprisingly, that's not Memeo's decision, but rather Google's. Google restricts its API usage for these types of synchronization services so that they only work with those who have business-level accounts.

As far as pricing goes, for Google Premier users, it's $9 a year per user and for non-Premier users, it's $59 a year per user, which includes a new Google Apps Premier Account in addition to the sync service.

Memeo Connect 2.0 is available for free evaluation from here. Both Mac and PC versions are available.

Today, the company is announcing the addition of Google Storage, a service nicknamed "GDrive" among Internet users, to its lineup of supported options.

Although Gladinet previously supported Google Docs, Google's online office suite, they did not yet provide an option to connect to Google Storage. This additional online storage space is provided to Google users who need more gigabytes than is provided for free via Google's programs. Specifically, Google Storage is shared between Gmail, Picasa Web Albums, and Google Docs. Affordably priced starting at $5.00 for an extra 20 GB per year and going up to 1 TB and beyond, Google Storage users have access to some of the most reasonably priced cloud storage available on the net today. And with the recent change to Google Docs, which now allows any file type to be uploaded, the storage space is more valuable than ever.

With the additional support now provided by Gladinet, you can drag-and-drop your files from your desktop to Google Storage using Windows Explorer. Once installed, the software allows you to map a virtual drive in Explorer to your online sites and services.

Why Bring the Cloud to the Desktop?

While some may scoff at such a hybrid approach to cloud computing - after all, the whole purpose of the cloud is to move away from desktop-based software - Gladinet is an incredibly valuable tool for both transitioning to the cloud and for managing cloud-to-cloud backups.

For those of us who have collected multiple gigabytes of files over the years, using the various cloud services' own uploading tools can be tedious at times, even painful, especially when attempting the initial upload to a new service. With Gladinet, though, you can upload everything you own with just a few clicks. That makes the final move from desktop to cloud much easier for those ready to make the change for good. Additionally, since multiple services are supported, Gladinet lets you backup your online files from one cloud storage provider to another. For example, you can backup your Google Docs to Amazon S3, EMC Atmos, Box.net, Windows Live SkyDrive, among others. Gladinet even allows you to automate this cloud-to-cloud copying procedure.

The backup feature and its related automation procedures are only available in the paid editions of the software. However, the basic drive mapping abilities are supported in the free version of the program which runs on Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 2003 computers only.

However, the system still only works with Gmail and the photo-sharing service Picasa. There's no mention of it expanding to encompass other Google services like Google Docs, for example. And there's definitely no mention of the seemingly mythical GDrive, the long-rumored online storage system supposedly under development which would allow for the upload of any file type for safe storage in the cloud. We're beginning to wonder: will Google ever offer us a real cloud storage solution?

Over on The Next Web, blogger Alex Wilhelm thinks the increased storage space hints at Google's future plans with their upcoming netbook operating system, Google Chrome OS. We have to admit, the same thought occurred to us as well. After all, netbooks don't typically have the same hard disk space as their larger, less totable counterparts. However, that's not always the case these days given the new middle-of-the-road offerings like the HP Mini 311, for example, which falls somewhere between an ultra-portable netbook and full-sized notebook with its 350 GB hard drive option.

But Alex has a point: by providing this type of cloud storage solution, netbooks can remain basic machines which are smaller and cost less. That would pave the way for the Google Chrome OS line of netbooks to be even more affordable devices than what's on the market today since they wouldn't need to come equipped with large hard drives.

Obviously, an OS-integrated cloud storage system of this nature would be a natural fit for Google's cloud operating system designed specifically for netbooks. And yet, it still seems to be an incomplete offering at this time.

But Still So Limited!

As much as we want to believe that the new changes are a sign of Google's plans for Chrome OS, it's just as possible that they're nothing more than the great discounts they appear to be. There's nothing all that new being introduced here - just better rates and more available space.

Sadly, the core storage offering itself is unchanged. It's still very limited, only encompassing Gmail and Picasa photos. What about the rest of our files - like the ones stored in Google Docs? What about our music and movie collections? What about the hundred or so of home videos we can't bear to delete from our hard drives? Google has no centralized solution for any of this yet. And many are beginning to wonder if they ever will.

In the tech community, there have been rumors about an all-encompassing online storage service called GDrive for years on end now, and yet, nothing has ever come of it. According to speculation (and wishful thinking), the supposed system would allow for the upload of all types of files and would tie together all of Google's services.

In our imaginations, we envision a dashboard that links us to our online Google Docs, our photos, our Gmail, our Google Sites, and our multimedia content. The GDrive of our dreams would be accessible from any computer, keeping in sync all our user data, preferences, and settings. You can see a hint of how this sync could work with the way the Google Chrome web browser stores your favorites. Your bookmarked sites are now available in the browser no matter what PC you use while a backup copy sits in Google Docs. GDrive should do the same, but not just for web browser favorites - for everything. That would be the final step for making a cloud OS a reality.

It's almost strange at this point that Google hasn't released something of the sort yet. In fact, they've let Microsoft beat them to the punch in this instance courtesy of Microsoft's SkyDrive service which launched back in early 2008. SkyDrive offers a free 25 GB of online storage for your files and also serves as the central repository for Windows Live Photos as well as the documents created via the new Office Web Applications service, Microsoft's challenge to Google Docs. But where's Google's answer to this? When will it come? Will it ever?

Perhaps the company is waiting for the release of Google Chrome OS to dazzle us with some sort of revamped interface for a game-changing cloud computing operating system. Or perhaps the company is just doing what it does best: offering solutions that are simply good enough.

Note: this week ReadWriteWeb released our second premium report: our Q2 2009 VC Funding Report. Full details below...

You can subscribe to the Weekly Wrapup by RSS or by email (form below).

RWW Weekly Wrap-up Email Subscription form:

Purchase The ReadWriteWeb Q2 2009 VC Funding Report

Our Second Premium Report for Businesses

We're excited to announce the availability of ReadWriteWeb's Q2 2009 VC Funding Report, our second premium report powered by data from ChubbyBrain. We have been tracking early-stage investment in Internet, mobile and SaaS since the financial crisis in September 2008 and we believe that this report is unlike anything else you've seen. Investors, bankers and advisers involved in the funding of digital innovation will get the facts on the deal-by-deal basis that they need to make decisions.

Our Report gives you the facts on 240 deals closed in April, May and June - who invested, in what company, how much they invested and when. Read on to see what's included in the guide and how to purchase it.

Web Trends

Getting the Goods: The New Amazon/Zappos Supply Chain Story

Beloved online shoe retailer Zappos this week announced it will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon, in exchange for almost a billion dollars worth of Amazon stock. Both of these companies are interesting because they have mastered making the connection between a quality online experience and physical delivery of tangible goods offline. Is this just a story of a big online shopping mall buying up a hot little online shoe store? Taking a closer look at the offline supply chain of each company indicates that there may be more to this deal.

The Wearable Internet Will Blow Mobile Phones Away

Earlier this year at the TED conference, Pattie Maes from the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces Group showcased a wearable computing system that allows users to display and interact with the Web on any surface - including the human body. The video shows the system's main developer, Pranav Mistry, taking photographs with his hand, summoning up Amazon review data onto the cover of a physical book, and more. Look out mobile phones, because in a decade's time wearable systems may be the primary means of accessing the Web.

IBM and The Internet of Things

In the Web world, you know that a trend has major traction when IBM is all over it. Like any large Internet company, Big Blue is careful about which trends it latches onto. However in the case of Internet of Things, IBM is proving itself to be an unusually early adopter. We recently spoke to Andy Stanford-Clark, a Master Inventor and Distinguished Engineer at IBM, who has hooked his house up to Twitter and is driving other Internet of Things initiatives at IBM.

New Study Finds Correlation Between Social Media and Financial Success

A new study released by enterprise wiki provider Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group shows that the brands most engaged in social media are also experiencing higher financial success rates than those of their non-engaged peers. To determine this relationship, the study focused on 100 companies from the 2008 BusinessWeek/Interbrand Best Global Brands survey and the various social media platforms they used like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, wikis, and forums.

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

A Word from Our Sponsors

We'd like to thank ReadWriteWeb's sponsors, without whom we couldn't bring you all these stories every week!

• Mashery is the leading provider of API management services.
• WeeBiz, a business community where you can find and share new business opportunities.
• Domain.ME, the official registry for all .ME Domains.
• SiSense, Analytics, Reports and Filters
• Mollom, stop comment spam and build your community.
• Crowd Science gives you detailed visitor demographics.
• hakia is a semantic search engine.
• Rackspace provides dedicated server hosting.
• Socialtext brings you 5 Best Practices for Enterprise Collaboration Success
• Aplus provides web hosting services for small business hosting needs.
• Wix, stunning Flash Websites for Free
• MediaTemple provides hosting for RWW.
• SixApart provides our publishing software MT4.

ReadWriteEnterprise

Our channel devoted to 'enterprise 2.0' and using social software inside organizations. Sponsored by Socialtext.

New Zoho CRM Aims to Undercut Salesforce.com

With improvements to email integration and a new marketing campaign, SaaS productivity vendor Zoho is aiming its sights openly at Salesforce.com, the dominant Web-based CRM today. The "Zwitch to Zoho" name might be cheesy marketing, but the cheaper subscription price is no joke. If you want more than 5 users, Salesforce.com will cost you $65/user/month. As of this week, Zoho is offering an unlimited use CRM subscription for just $12.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

Three Steps to Building an Online Brand

This is one post/chapter in a serialized book called Startup 101. For the introduction and table of contents, please click here.

The three steps to building an online brand are:

1. Look good,

2. Get noticed,

3. Build trust.

In the long run, only the last one matters. Enron's logo was just fine, and it got noticed, but on that last count, well...

SEE MORE STARTUPS COVERAGE IN OUR READWRITESTART CHANNEL

Web Products

How One iPhone App Could Save Public Radio

Some newspapers scrambling to survive the internet condemn websites like Google News and the Huffington Post. Aggregators, they say, need to pay for the right to point to a newspaper's site. Public radio stations, on the other hand, face competition from the internet as well and are just as competitive between themselves as they are collaborative. Somehow, they've responded differently to new media. There may be no better example of that than an iPhone application built by several large public radio organizations and called Public Radio Player.

Will Google Chrome OS Bring Us the Mythical GDrive?

Last week, Google announced some interface changes to their Google Docs service that are designed to make finding your files easier. The changes are relatively minor - the "shared with" list has gone away, there's a new "Sharing" menu, and you now have the ability to save your searches - but that hasn't stopped some bloggers from theorizing that the shiny new UI is bringing us one step closer to the often theorized, yet never realized, "Google Drive" service, aka "your hard drive in the cloud."

Can Barnes & Noble Challenge Amazon's eBook Empire?

Barnes & Noble, the beleaguered online bookstore, opened its eBook store this week. It also announced that it has partnered with Plastic Logic, which is expected to release a highly anticipated Kindle competitor soon. Given that B&N seems to have all of the necessary pieces in place, we think that the the company can challenge Amazon - especially given that it offers a larger selection of books and plans to offer a device that is more open than Amazon's Kindle.

Free Alternatives to Photoshop With All the Bells, Whistles, Filters, & Layers

Let's face it: If cropping was all you needed to do, you'd just use MS Paint. Photoshop, Adobe's industry standard for image editing, costs a whopping $600. But when you need tools such as layers, filters, and other effects, 101-level apps such as Picnik and Picasa just don't cut it. So we've rounded up and road-tested seven free resources that pack the punch of Photoshop's bells and whistles without the price.

Seven e-Learning and Teaching Resources

While the down economy continues to hurt funding to our schools, more and more teachers are looking to web-based services to help educate their students. Whether it's through open resource projects like CK-12, virtual classrooms like those in Second Life, or through the repurposing of tools like Twitter, millions of teachers are finding innovative resources to engage their students. If you're a teacher, here are seven great tools to get you started.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

That's a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Although we know this service exists in some form as an internal tool, Google has yet to release a version for public use. But with the latest announcements about the new Chrome operating system, we wonder: will Google Drive finally become a reality thanks to Chrome OS?

In January of this year, blogger Brian Ussery discovered an interesting tidbit of information tucked into a file used by Google Pack, the bundle of tools that Google thinks computer users need to set up a new machine. The file contained a reference to a product called GDrive, described as an "online file backup and storage" system:

"GDrive provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents. GDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device - be it from your desktop, web browser or cellular phone."

Of course, the blogosphere immediately went crazy over this information, sure that this time Google Drive was about to become a reality. And yet, like all the times before, nothing happened. GDrive didn't launch, Google didn't release any announcement, and disappointed bloggers everywhere moved on...again.

Still, the hope for a true GDrive system just won't die. It very well may be one of the blogosphere's longest-running rumors. And now, with the recent announcement of Google's new Chrome Operating System, an OS where "web-based applications will automatically work," we wonder: will the mythical GDrive be included with the OS?

GDrive Needs Picasa Integration

From what we already know, Google has somewhat integrated Picasa into the backend of Google Docs, but, for whatever reason, they have not yet switched this on. To see what we mean, visit this link: http://docs.google.com/#photos. You'll be taken to Google Docs where a message will appear "No Photos." In other words, Picasa image search works in Google Docs, but there's nothing for it to search until the two services are fully integrated. But this functionality was discovered nearly a year ago. What's the holdup?

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Picasa, unlike Docs, is a combination of desktop software and a web service. The service's Web Albums feature is more like flickr, a place where photos are shared either publicly or privately with friends and family. However, it's the desktop software that provides the organizational and editing tools needed to manage your photo library. Integrating Picasa into Google Docs now would only be a partially complete user experience - you still need the desktop software component to access all the functionality the service provides.

Maybe Google is waiting to provide that complete experience via Chrome OS? It's not that far-fetched. Picasa is already available in a Linux version (and Chrome OS will sit on a Linux kernel). But perhaps what really has us hopeful was one extra word in the Google Chrome OS announcement:

"...most of the user experience takes place on the web."

Most? Maybe Chrome OS will let you manage your photos via desktop software that integrates with a web service and is accessible via your Google Docs interface? Will that interface then be "GDrive?"

GDrive Needs Music...Or Does It?

If you can't save your tunes online to your cloud storage drive, then you don't really have any cloud storage drive worth using, do you? Even if Google Docs added in Picasa, we'd still be looking at an incomplete GDrive solution if we didn't have access to our music. For GDrive to become the true "hard drive in the sky" it needs to accommodate other sorts of files besides just documents and photos.

It would make sense if Google leveraged their existing partnership with Amazon, who provides the music store on the T-Mobile G1 and the myTouch 3G, phones running Google's mobile phone OS called Android. With Amazon's online interface, you can already browse, listen to samples, and buy MP3s via the web.

The question is, will Chrome OS integrate some sort of music store for letting you buy music (maybe via Amazon) from your computer? And if so, will you be able to download and save those files to the hard drive of the computer itself? Or will Google come up with some revolutionary new "music in the cloud" service that lets you accumulate an online library of songs available at any time for streaming from your computer? Or then again, does Chrome OS even need an iTunes alternative in order to compete? Maybe they will simply offer a web app like Pandora. There have been no hints as to what direction Google will go with this or if they will ignore users' need for music altogether in the new OS.

But like this author's sister recently said after being told about Chrome OS: "why would I want a computer that couldn't run iTunes?"

We hope Google will keep that in mind.

GDrive and Video?

Would a true GDrive solution offer a way for users to store video files, too? It almost seems redundant to have an online storage system for video since Google also owns the giant video sharing portal that is YouTube. Still, you couldn't really have a cloud storage system that restricted you to storing only documents and photos and call it "GDrive." But integrating the supposed GDrive with YouTube - especially via Chrome OS - could be tough. Today, videos still need to be on your computer's hard drive for editing purposes. And, of course, uploading a file from your computer is how you get them online to sites like YouTube. Althouugh GDrive could easily include a way for you to view your online files at YouTube, getting them there via Chrome OS would be more difficult. However, if Chrome OS allowed you to save files on its hard drive, then the YouTube uploader built into Chrome could simply know to look in that particular video storage location when you go to publish them online. Making this a seamless experience for the end user would be the challenge. Again, there are no hints as to Google's plans in this department, but it would seem odd if Chrome OS didn't attempt to integrate one of Google's top properties deep into its system.

What Else?

Although this article is just pure speculation, we think that if we ever see GDrive revealed, there's a chance that it would occur when it's introduced as a part of Chrome OS. What do you think?

You can already store your photos on Picasa Web Albums (though the amount of free storage is very limited). However, once you pay Google, your Gmail storage and Picasa storage limits become one - so Google clearly has at least some unified infrastructure for doing some of the back-end work in place already. According to a document (PDF) unearthed by Google is Watching You, that is exactly what Google is planning to do with the GDrive.

Google has enough clout to take online storage mainstream. While this directly benefits Google, it will also benefit the cloud storage industry in general, as the big name behind the product will drive up the general comfort level with online storage.

There are, of course, numerous small and medium sized-companies that offer online storage in some form or another. The smartest ones integrate directly with your desktop, so that you can seamlessly move data between the cloud and your own machine. A large number of other services also offer backup services, though without directly integrating this with your desktop. While all of these offerings are interesting, none have really made it into the mainstream yet.

What the GDrive is Up Against

Google's biggest competitor in this business is most likely going to be Microsoft, which has just started its push for cloud computing and storage. With its Live Drive, Microsoft offers 25GB of storage to all of its millions of Windows Live users. But Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft if it didn't also offer ten different online storage solutions that can't speak to each other. You can also use LiveSync to transfer data between your own computers, Live Mesh for syncing and online storage, and Office Live Workspace for managing and storing office documents. And these are just Microsoft's consumer products in this space.

If Google gets the GDrive right, it will be able to offer one single online storage solution that does all of what Microsoft's plethora of tools does, but through one unified user interface and service. If the descriptions of the GDrive that have surfaced over the last week turn out to be true, then Google wants to offer a solution for all your files, including documents, photos, and (interestingly) music.

If Google can also offer solutions to access these files on mobile phones (besides Android) and if it offers a good integration with the desktop, then it could surely become the company that takes cloud storage into the mainstream.

Now we just have to wait for the actual release of the GDrive...

Why would you like a Google Drive service? For the presumably very low price point (free?), for the ease of backing up important data or for the potential integration of stored data into other powerful Google services? There's lots of reasons to perk up your ears when rumors like this pop up.

GMail As Possible Home for GDrive

Gmail Product Manager Todd Jackson told Webware last week that:

"We know people's file sizes are getting bigger. They want to share their files, keep them in the cloud, and not worry about which computer they're on. Google wants to be solving these problems."

That's all well and good, and we know that Gmail already does a lot of storage. It could be the home from which a GDrive is spun out. But is there anything more solid than that?

Picassa Hints

Sterling also points to coverage last night on Google watchdog site Google Blogoscoped where a screenshot from Picassa offers the option to upload photos to "Google Web Drive." The conversation in comments on that post is quite interesting, as well, including a mention of what looks to us like a possible placeholder for storing photo albums in Google Docs and a mock-up screenshot of what one Blogoscoped reader thinks the GDrive product could look like.

Security Concerns

For as long as Google has been rumored to be building a GDrive product, there have been concerns about how solid the company's control over user data security is. From all too common cases of "oops, your GMail account vanished" to more than one of the company's own official blogs being hacked, there's something a little worrisome about the security of a Google Drive.

Just as important a set of concerns though could be around Google's incredible control over so much of our data already. The company has its fingers in so many pies that it's hard to believe it warrants more trust, just on principle.

It's a vexing situation. The potential awesomeness of Google services is incredible. The actual delivered value of new services is often disappointing. The company has committed relatively few offenses against propriety with its incredible power (China notwithstanding) but the potential for abuse is incredible.

Do you want a Google Drive? Do you believe one's really coming? What would you like it to do?