Microsoft’s cloud storage service, SkyDrive, has received several updates in past few weeks, and the progressive updates continue to integrate it well across Windows Phone and Windows. While you can share files on SkyDrive via email, and use your friends’ addresses across Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn using the connected address book, you can also get a link to any file or folder on SkyDrive and send that link to friends. You can choose to let friends edit or add files, or choose to make the link read-only.

Although these SkyDrive links have been shortened by about 40%, recently, SkyDrive enabled shortened URLs for these links using the new http://sdrv.ms domain. The sdrv.ms links are furnished via Microsoft’s partnership with bit.ly. Since, it is bit.ly at the backend, the shortened URLs include additional features like adding a ‘+’ to the end of any short URL to see statistics or generating a QR code for that URL by appending ’.qrcode’.

1. Select any file or folder on SkyDrive Web, and click on the Share link in the sidebar.
2. In the Share dialog, click Get a link, and then click the Create button according to the required permissions.
3. Click the Shorten button next to the generated link to obtain the shortened URL.

SkyDrive URLs also include OpenGraph support so that you get a neat thumbnail preview when you share the links on sites like Facebook.

Microsoft recently updated their SkyDrive service to include a bunch of new features. They introduced apps for Windows and OS X, updated their iOS apps, made the service more like Dropbox and introduced support for more Office file formats. Microsoft engineer Dharmesh Mehta says with all these features it is time the company went “loud” about the service, I agree.

In an interview with Pocket-Lint’s Chris Hall, Dharmesh Mehta outlined some future plans regarding SkyDrive. Two key plans that were mentioned are:

• Microsoft doesn’t plan an official SkyDrive app for Android
• SkyDrive TV commercials in 6-9 months

Mehta explains that Android users can use the web version of SkyDrive on their phones and that the company has APIs for developers to build SkyDrive functionality in their apps or develop third party clients. I am not sure if I agree with the approach; if the company has the pieces to build an app, they might as well do it. Google Drive and Dropbox are options for Android users as of now, going forward, Google Drive will be deeply integrated. Having presence on both the two largest mobile platforms can only benefit Microsoft; they have a Hotmail app for Android, as such, it would be great if the company had a SkyDrive app to complement it.

Close watchers of Microsoft and SkyDrive will know that Microsoft has been placing SkyDrive in TV shows, adding TV commercials to the mix will definitely be going “loud” regarding SkyDrive.

Dharmesh Mehta assures Hall that the team isn’t done and they have a lot more to talk about in coming months.

After the recent refresh of SkyDrive and the introduction of SkyDrive for Windows app, the online storage service from Microsoft is focusing on educating users how sharing files via SkyDrive is a better approach than sending attachments in email.

Head to www.attachmentssuck.com and learn easy steps to get started. Don’t miss – The life of an attachment: complex, annoying, and time wasting! – a comprehensive infographic showing the life cycle of an attachment, stressing on the wastefulness and inefficiency of the exercise.

SkyDrive allows you to share documents, photos, and files with anyone you choose and it’s automatically available from any device. You can even work together on Office documents in real time. Here’s how to get started:

1. If you don’t already have one, get a Windows Live ID and you’ll see SkyDrive in the top navigation. Click, and just add files.
2. Select the file you want to send.
3. Click Share, and then select the kind of permission you want to give to people you’re sharing files with by checking or unchecking the Recipients can edit box.
4. Click Send.

The special micro-site allows you to send Ecards to your friends via Facebook, Twitter, or email hinting them that it is annoying when they send attachments in email and asking them to get setup with a SkyDrive account to save themselves and you some time. Forget the marketing pitch, I think I should do this for lot of my old-school friends who send huge files, back and forth, as attachments. SkyDrive, or any online storage service for that matter, is a better way to share files and to collaborate on them.

“Email publishing” — a feature which allows you to publish photos directly to SkyDrive via email — will be discontinued after April 2012 according to an email sent out by Microsoft. The feature, which made its way into SkyDrive from the long-deceased service Windows Live Spaces (rest its soul) allows you to directly publish photos to SkyDrive via email.

Basically, you authorize up to three email addresses to send the photos from, and each SkyDrive album would be assigned an email address (in the username.albumname.sekritkeyword@spaces.live.com format.)

I don’t think that this feature would be too missed; until today, I had no idea about its existence at all. In lieu of the demise of email publishing, however, we can all look forward to the massive SkyDrive update which is set to roll out sometime soon. This update is set to introduce desktop clients for both Windows (on Windows 8, an awesome Metro SkyDrive app is available) and OS X, an increased upload size limit, paid storage capacity upgrades, offline functionality, and SkyDrive browsing of remote files, among other things. With Google Drive on the horizon, along with other existing cloud platforms (i.e Dropbox), it’s good to see SkyDrive keeping things competitive. And with the introduction of desktop functionality, it seems like the service may be a worthy competitor to iCloud in terms of an ecosystem cloud utility (let’s just hope for some awesome Windows Phone 8 integration.)

Google’s free cloud based storage service – Google Drive – has been rumored to be in development since years now. However, speculation that it may finally be close to launch has intensified in the last week, after a report by GigaOM stated that it will be launched in April 2012.

While the report stated that it will offer 1 GB of free storage – much less than what Dropbox or Microsoft Skydrive offer, a new leaked screenshot by TalkAndroid suggests that Google Drive will offer 5 GB of free online storage to all users. It also says that it may be launched on April 16.

By offering 5 GB, Google Drive is offering much more than Dropbox officially does, but only a fifth of what Skydrive offers.

Google Drive will work on desktop, tablets, mobiles and also have a web based interface at drive.google.com (which currently throws a 404 error).

It will also offer integration with Google Docs and Google Apps, and will be targeted at individual users, as well as small businesses with multi-user support. It may also be integrated with all Android smartphones going forward, to boost market share and make it the default option for the average Joe.

Google’s rumored cloud storage service – Google Drive – has reportedly been in development since 2006, with rumors of an imminent launch surfacing every 2-3 months. However, according to a report by GigaOM, it may finally be launched this April.

Google’s Gdrive will reportedly offer 1 GB of free storage, and charge for additional space, which is less than what Dropbox or Microsoft’s Skydrive offer.

It will come with a local client for all major platforms, and also support a web based interface which will be similar to the Google Docs interface. It may be integrated with Google Apps and Google Docs, with multi-user support, and sync capabilities across multiple devices.

To maximize its reach, Google may bundle it with Android devices.

Google has been too late to this space, which it could have easily dominated had it launched something a couple of years ago.

While Google Drive may not generate a lot of revenue directly for Google, it may help it gather more data about users, and improve its search results in some way.

With its massive data centers lined up across the globe, it is one of the few tech giants which could provide cloud storage services at a low cost. It will be interesting to see how Dropbox, Box and other competitors respond to Google’s entry in the space.

Now, this bit of news will be a bummer to you Live Mesh users out there who are taking advantage of device-to-device syncing: In the upcoming major SkyDrive update that we recently wrote about, Microsoft has no plans to implement this feature when SkyDrive swallows up Mesh. Here’s a comment from SkyDrive team member Mike Torres on the SkyDrive announcement post on Building Windows 8:

We won’t be offering a way to sync between PCs without using the cloud as we’ve found that it adds complexity. Both technical complexity as well as, more importantly, complexity in the overall user model. The SkyDrive model is really quite simple in that it’s “cloud-first” and not “cloud-optional” which means you no longer have to worry about the timing of various PCs being online to sync, or having files that are only available on PCs but not through SkyDrive.com or mobile devices. Conflicts are far less likely as well since the cloud is always “online”. The fetch feature addresses the need to “get back” to stuff that you haven’t put in SkyDrive yet. There are tradeoffs either way, we realize that, but we decided to focus on a simple model and really work to get that right.

It turns out that Mike Torres, Omar Shahine (the SkyDrive guys), and Steven Sinofsky have all been actively answering the questions of curious users on the original blog post. LiveSide has a list of some of the more important things revealed in the comment thread, including a comment where Mike addresses the difference between Microsoft’s intent with SkyDrive, and a cloud backup solution.

While this is an unfortunate feature omission, the SkyDrive update is still huge, and I look forward to using SkyDrive regularly following the release of the desktop clients.

After several leaks of upcoming SkyDrive features made the rounds on the internet in the past few days, Microsoft confirmed a bunch of fantastic updates to SkyDrive on their Building Windows 8 blog today.

Let’s look at what was announced in the post by Omar Shahine and Mike Torres, Group Program Managers for SkyDrive:

• Metro-style SkyDrive app for Windows 8
• Windows Explorer integration of SkyDrive
• SkyDrive.com browsing of remote computer files

In addition, several other items were confirmed:

• The SkyDrive desktop app is not limited to Windows 8. It will be supported on Windows 7 and Windows Vista as well. Curiously (and perhaps, deliberately?) no mention of a Mac desktop app, even though the screenshot leaks showed there may be a Mac app coming as well.
• The post also confirmed that SkyDrive, which offers 25GB free as of today, will have the ability to get upgraded. Obviously, no details were mentioned about the pricing or the tiers, but finally we have official confirmation that we will be able to upgrade that storage, so we can use it meaningfully as a “personal cloud”.
• SkyDrive was recently updated to handle file sizes of up to 100MB, but in today’s day and age it could be a limiting factor, especially with videos. Today we have confirmation that we will be able to upload files with sizes up to 2GB!
• With the remote file browsing feature, we also have confirmation that there will be 2-factor authentication required, unless those PCs are trusted PCs.

Finally, because SkyDrive app will be available to any other app in Windows 8 via Charms and Contracts, every app developer now has access to the SkyDrive. Any app which opens and saves documents and photos, will automatically be able to use SkyDrive for the purpose. This will be a wonderful feature for app developers as well as customers, who will have instant access to their SkyDrive files in Windows 8.

Portugese blog GEMIND managed to snag some screenshots of an upcoming SkyDrive update that has both tiered, paid storage upgrades, as well as a blurb promoting proper SkyDrive clients for both Windows and OS X (in the same area where, visiting SkyDrive now will show a promotion for the new iPhone and Windows Phone clients.)

There are going to be three paid tiers of SkyDrive that each offer additional storage on top of the 25GB that is available for free. Here’s the list, along with USD pricing:

• 20GB — $10 / year
• 50GB — $25 / year
• 100GB — $50 / year

With both desktop clients and storage upgrades in the SkyDrive oven, this surely means that the discontinuation of Live Mesh is imminent. There’s absolutely no reason for Microsoft to not succeed Mesh with SkyDrive; if they’re going all-out in the cloud, Mesh’s 5GB storage cap is far too low. Not only that, but it’s an unnecessary product; its discontinuation is a necessary simplification of Microsoft’s product line. If Microsoft implements an iCloud-esque backup solution in Windows Phone that backs up to SkyDrive, that — based on user preferences, of course — can sync photos, contacts, and documents to the web and to devices, Microsoft would have a 20GB advantage over iCloud.

On top of these upgrades, let’s hope that the Windows Live guys are working on a colossal redesign of the Windows Live services (for example, if SkyDrive’s photo sharing abilities was as beautiful as say, Droplr, I would definitely use it regularly for posting images to Twitter.)