Gmail users running short on storage are getting a reprieve starting today. The company has announced they'll be increasing the speed in which they've been adding storage to their popular e-mail service, along with bumps to Google Apps users. You might have seen the storage counter that's been running on the Gmail's start page, which is nearing the 3 GB mark bit by bit--and now, it's doing it just a little bit faster. Meanwhile, Google Apps users are getting a slightly better end of the deal. Standard and Educational users are getting a size match with Gmail's offerings, while the Premier gets an extra 15GB, bringing their cap to 25GB.
The one thing missing from any of this newly added storage is a place to dump files--or the long awaited "Gdrive." The closest thing Google actually has to a file dump is with their Google Groups service, which caps total file storage at 100 MB. In comparison, competitors like Microsoft are taking their own initiative with the Windows Live SkyDrive service, which bumped up its limit to 1GB last night, and Yahoo's somewhat crippled Briefcase service which gives users a paltry 25MB of shared storage to share only with other registered Yahoo users (incidentally this is about the attachment size limit for Gmail).
I still think Google is sending mixed messages with their "infinity + 1" concept, which promotes the idea of offering users unlimited storage. The only caveat there is it's on Google's terms, and they'll only make adjustments to the storage limit when they see fit--like today. At the same time, the company is quietly promoting their paid storage add-on service, which sells yearly subscriptions of extra storage to your Google account, ranging up to an additional 400GB. This bodes well for the eventual rollout of the fabled GDrive, but if anyone's expecting copious amounts of free storage beyond what the big G is currently offering, don't hold your breath.
The Web world was abuzz this week over rumors that Google is preparing a service that will let people store every bit of their data online.
Details about the GDrive product leaked onto the Web after Google accidentally posted notes online from a slide presentation given by executives during the company's analyst presentation day.
Bloggers quickly picked up on the notes, which stated that "with infinite storage, we can house all user files, including e-mails, Web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc., and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc.)." Google subsequently took the original presentation, and the notes, offline.
While bloggers were excited about the possible new product, the prospect of people trusting 100 percent of their data with Google raised recurring privacy concerns.
Blog community response:
"Information was clearly purged from analyst materials (unless this is an elaborate hoax by Greg and his readers), meaning we have selective disclosure of this information. Some people received it but it is not generally available to the public. I don't like this. In fact, I think it's Gevil. Now that some people know about it, Google should put it (back) up on the Web. "
--TechCrunch
"The more I think about this, the more I'm not comfortable with the idea of having all my data in one place. Any place. Google or otherwise. It simply makes abuse too easy."
--John Battelle's Searchblog
"Any timeline is unclear. The internal notes say Google's 'store 100 percent' scenario would be made possible if Google had 'infinite storage'...Left out, I assume, is the revelation: 'Google's live-forever scenario would be made possible if not for the problem of death.'"
--ValleyWag
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