Today Google launched Google Drive, which is Google's cloud storage and file sharing. Microsoft has Skydrive, Apple has iCloud, Amazon has a cloud, and third parties like Dropbox and Box.net have cloud storage.
Any cloud needs the ability to synchronize storage and files across any device, like synchronizing a file from an iPhone to a PC, or from an Android phone to a Mac, or from a tablet to phone, etc. etc., you get the idea. No one wants to be captive to a sole-source single vendor cloud and have data tied up with one vendor, and being forced to use that vendor's hardware and operating system in order to access the data.
Google did it right with Google Drive, it's got 5GB of storage for free, works on Android, PC, Mac, iOS through a browser, with an app coming in a few weeks, and provides storage of just about anything, including large video files. It also does optical cahracter recognition to make text searchable, using, of course, Google search.
Additional storage is dirt cheap, with an upgrade to 25GB only $2.49 a month, 100GB $4.99 a month, and 1Terabyte for $49. a month.
Google Drive also includes applications for opening the files stored. For example, if you have a video, the video player is included with Google Drive so you don't need an application on your PC. In addition to videos, photos, graphics, Microsoft documents, PDF files and others can be stored. Compared to Dropbox, Box.net and other third party cloud services, Google got everything right and when the iOS app comes, expect a heavy download day on the App Store.
Google announced a new program for Blogger blogs with a Gadget for "Advertise Products." If the blog has an active AdSense account, writing a blog post that contains copy for an available advertiser will result in the "Advertise Products" Gadget appearing with the option to add it to the blog.
From the Gadget, the available advertisers will appear. Select one, then publish the blog post. For blogs without an active AdSense account, an AdSense account will need to be setup. All of this can be done from the Google's Affiliate Publisher page.
After signing up for the Google Affiliate terms and conditions and setting up your AdSense account, the Advertise Products gadget appears in the right sidebar when editing or writing a post. Clicking on the Gadget opens up a search box and window where advertisers are displayed based on the content of a blog post.
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