Marketing Pilgrim

Google Blogoscoped helps us start off the week with some juicy speculation that Google may have scrapped plans to launch an online storage service.

It’s been more than a year since Google’s GDrive was discovered, suggesting features such as:

• Backup. If you lose your computer, grab a new one and reinstall Platypus. Your files will be on your new machine in minutes.
• Sync. Keep all your machines synchronized, even if they run different operating systems.
• VPN-less access. Not at a Google computer? View your files on the web at http://troutboard.com/p.
• Collaborate. Create shared spaces to which multiple Googlers can write.
  * Disconnected access. On the plane? VPN broken? All your files are still accessible.

Since then, we’ve not heard another word about GDrive–aka Platypus–until a YouTube video by a Google employee suggested the service was scrapped.

The video, apparently created and sung by a Google employee, was showing the Gdrive aka Platypus icon overlaid with the lyrics, ?I?ve been ready to launch my product since 2002 … At least round here 5 years ain?t so long overdue.? Someone claiming to be an ex-Googler ? I can?t verify this ? now adds in the comments, ?Platypus was intended for public release as much as [a] year ago, but then there was the push away from creating new products.? It?s true that in 2006, an internal Google company goal read ?Count total number of Google products and reduce by 20%.?

Don’t give up on it just yet. Google wants to dominate your web use, and if it wants us to use Google for everything, then it would be wise to give us a place to store all of our stuff online. I’m guessing the recent launch of increased storage space is Google testing the waters of online storage. By restricting storage to Google Docs and Gmail, it can launch the service and have at least some control over the files uploaded. Once it’s weeded out the bugs, it could well open up the service to include synching and backups of any file.