14 DAY TRIAL // Google is always testing new products and features, many times in the wild, so it doesn't take long for them to surface even if the company doesn't comment on tests. One product that Google is working on, pushed by mistake too early to some users, is Cloud Picker. The name is suggestive enough but, while it's a useful tool, it's not the GDrive some made it out to be.
Cloud Picker is a simple tool for adding media content from several Google services to, well, other Google services. For example, it would allow Blogger and Sites users to insert images or videos from Picasa and YouTube.
They can also add a saved location from Google Maps, or a Docs file. It's a unified way of embedding content you host on Google services on your blog or company site. Besides browsing for the content you want, you can also search for it across these products.
It's easy to see how the tool could prove useful and it's great that Google has finally gotten around to making one. Microsoft actually provides a somewhat similar feature with "Quick Add" in Hotmail, though that content is public rather than your one files.
However, Google is not quite ready to debut Cloud Picker. Unfortunately, the product went live for some Google Apps users but without all the necessary hooks. The dialog would pop up but it would ask users for their Google Accounts credentials leading to quite a large number of confused users.
Google has now fixed the issue and confirmed that the feature is coming but said that it wasn't supposed to be rolled out just yet. "Oops… looks like someone pushed some code too quickly. It’s not quite ready for prime time yet but stay tuned!," a Google spokesperson said.