It's long been rumored that Google would eventually offer an online storage cloud for all your data, and now that fable is becoming a reality. Google just released a shared storage program. This new offer merges the storage of different Google products into a single storage back-end. At this time, the Picasa Web Albums photo application as well as Gmail are part of the mix. But we can expect more services to be added to this program in the future. Google Documents (containing word processing documents, spreadsheets, and likely presentations soon, too) is a likely contender. Separate premium accounts, like the one Picasa offered before, are being removed in the meantime.

The offers range from 6 gigabyte for $20/ year up to 250 gigabyte for $500/ year, as the picture shows (your payment will be processed with Google Checkout; note you will not receive the upgrade instantly, and Google says it may take 'up to 24 hours' for your new storage amount 'to appear in all services'). This storage will be extra to the free storage you already got through different Google services. Especially for those of you for whom Gmail's "you'll never need to delete another message" claim was false as the inbox was overflowing, the additional 6 or 25 gigabytes may be worth it.