Google Online Storage Service, From Rumor To Reality?
The Wall Street Journal has just reignited an old rumor: Google is, not-so-secretly, working to unveil an internet service through which the computer users will be able to store all their data on Google’s servers.

As a consequence, their music files, videos or documents will be accessible from any Internet-capable device.

Although Google denied commenting on the rumor, The Wall Street Journal noted that the name of the new service could be GDrive or MyStuff.

As usual, a Google spokeswoman offered a diplomatic response. She said in a statement that "storage is an important component of making Web (applications) fit easily into consumers' and business users' lives."

Let’s stop here and let’s take a short look at the recent history. The rumors about Google’s GDrive are already two years old and last time they had been fueled by a fragment from a presentation held by Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, at an investor conference in March 2006.

"Store 100%" reality, the online copy of your data will become your Golden Copy and your local-machine copy serves more like a cache. An important implication of this theme is that we can make your online copy more secure than it would be on your own machine. Another important implication of this theme is that storing 100% of a user's data makes each piece of data more valuable because it can be access across applications. For example: a user's Orkut profile has more value when it's accessible from Gmail (as addressbook), Lighthouse (as access list), etc.”, said Erich Schmidt in the presentation.

The concept of online storage is nothing new and there are already several companies which, for a monthly or annual fee, rent you a certain number of MB or GB in order for you to save those essential data that you don’t want to lose if your personal computer begins to malfunction.

Even Microsoft has jumped into the “boat” of online storage and it offers a offers a test version of a service called Windows Live SkyDrive with one gigabyte of free storage.

Google also offers extensive web-based storage and applications through services like its Gmail, Docs and Picasa.

So where’s the catch? The Wall Street Journal explained that Google hopes to distinguish itself from existing online storage services partly by simplifying the process for transferring and opening files.

Also, Google hopes is hoping the new storage service will help tie together some of its other services through a single search box, The Wall Street Journal explained.

Still, although Google MyStuff or GDrive, seems so far to be an interesting addition to the online storage market, I bet there are more features then those reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The integration of MyStuff with its existing services such as Google Docs or Google Page Creator could be the strong point of Google’s new offer.

Of course, Google has deal with of lot of issues such as data privacy, availability, copyright infringements and technical challenges, but according to The Wall Street Journal, the new service could be unveiled in the coming months.

Let’s wait and see what Google is “cooking” for us!