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.