Jeremiah's comment on yesterday's post about Google's upcoming storage service is worth a post of its own. He wrote:
The big opportunity (if users will allow it, or skip terms of service) is the ability for Google to sell ads on top of content within a Gdrive. Eventually, this will continue to become a commodity market, and could flip over to beg for consumers to upload content (data is key for serving ads). I still predict that some online data storage company will figure out how to pay customers to upload data to serve up ads. Have you ever seen those advertisements that give away computers for free to lower income folks? They get access to a 1000 dollar laptop in exchange to being exposed to heavy advertising.
It's a good point, but it will push the bounds of the creepiness factor even further. On one hand, it's part of the evolution from your queries to your mail to your files, but each level gets more and more personal. It's also interesting that Google hasn't tried monetizing its free Google Desktop in any direct way; rather, it nets Google more registered users and more user loyalty for its services.
Interestingly, this came up in a column a couple years back, "Google Talk Pays For Itself":
Once you’re registered for one service, the barrier to register for another is minimal. As a Gmail user, I didn’t think twice about trying the personalized home page, Google Desktop 2, and Google Talk. All of this keeps me in a Google bubble.... That means it keeps getting easier to search on Google - another barrier lifted. This gives Google’s advertisers more keyword inventory. And that’s just step one.
Steps two through 50 involve ad targeting, starting with demographics and then going by search history and then graduating to behavior and, one day, Google discovers it’s so darn smart it just starts telling you what you’re looking for before you even search. It becomes your personal valet.
