Google's mission is to "Organize the World's Information" and they do a rather smashing job of it as long as they alone are doing it.   Even though they do a better job than most as staying open, there is still a significant risk when putting all your eggs in the Google basket and few options for backing out.   Particularly with the rise of Google+, Google Music beta and other such services going all in on Google could prove a big liability for individuals and companies in terms of being able to shift to new or better services as they emerge or just re-establish ownership over your own content.  Every business would do well to act with caution in opting for the convenience of any service as that convenience would too easily transform into abducting the ownership of your content.   I would suggest that losing control of your content in a world where ideas and content are a commodity is the same as losing control of your life or business.

With a little forethought however some convenient ways exist to both leverage the convenient services offered by Google and remain managers of your information.  The Digital Liberation Foundation launched it's "Google Takeout" service, that allows the harvesting and export of your information from various Google services into open formats.  Open formats are the key to keeping your content flexible and mobile and in a world where 5 years is an entire era of information management practices, this is critical to surviving and thriving in the modern world.  The group is starting with export features related to Google services but plan to expand their ability to other services as well.  I assume (hope) this means Facebook and Yahoo! based services but only time will tell.

Even with groups like ...