Gmail goes down, Internet users still procrastinate*
*(Post updated at 2:40 p.m. on Aug. 13 with comments from Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt)
As any self-respecting obsessive e-mail checker could tell you, popular webmail system Gmail went down for more than an hour this afternoon. People raged on Twitter about the outage (Typical tweet: "Ah! No Email! Save Us!"). They complained that outages on Web services have been happening a lot lately. They commented about the outrage on popular tech websites and made snarky comments about other people's panic.
But even though Gmail users spend hours a day checking their mail and chatting online, the outage didn't seem to make them any more productive by depriving them of their means of procrastination. Claire Hardy, a 28-year-old jury consultant in Costa Mesa, went to the website The Nest to talk to friends about the Gmail outage. She changed her Facebook status to say, "Claire would like Gmail to work ASAP." She refreshed Gmail every 20 minutes to see whether the site was working again.
"It made me less productive because I needed to make sure I was communicating with my friends," she said, "but we were communicating via other means that weren’t as efficient as Gmail."
She also checked on Google's official explanation, posted in the dark corner of the dedicated to groups interested in Google help announcements. "The Gmail team is currently aware of a subset of users being affected by the 502 error on login," the alert said.
The issue has been resolved, according to a Google spokesman. The company line:
"From about 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Pacific Time today, many Gmail users were unable to access their email. The issue is now resolved. We're very sorry for the interruption in service. The issue was caused by a temporary outage in the contacts system used by Gmail which prevented Gmail from loading properly. All mail is safe, though there may be minor delays with delivery."
Asked about the Gmail outage on CNBC's "Mad Money with Jim Cramer," Google CEO Eric Schmidt later said, "That was a screw-up. We fixed that. We're not perfect."
-- Alana Semuels
Semuels, a Times staff writer, covers wireless, marketing and the L.A. tech scene.
Gmail screen shot by Mirian Bruckschen via Flickr
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Posted by: brady westwater | August 11, 2008 at 07:24 PM
So all we hear are complaints about a free service that works most of the time from a person who admits she was less productive because she was too busy trying to communicate with her friends during business hours when she should be working. Why not try working while you're at work? That might be more productive.
Posted by: Bradley Jones | August 11, 2008 at 08:16 PM
WHO THE F cares? Dont you losers have anything else to do but watch error messages?
Posted by: Liv | August 11, 2008 at 09:39 PM
omg! i cannot believe how some people who can complain about a free service and think they can attack google with this? Why aren't they using hotmail?, too many ads? just be glad google is free service and is not like microsoft, this article makes this business woman sound like a complete idiot :|
wow I luv gmail, and i can wait over an hour if there down woopydoo.. get some patience people
Posted by: Kanderson73 | August 11, 2008 at 10:36 PM
>>So all we hear are complaints about a free service
Free Service?
I'm paying $250 a year for this crap!
I'm a business and was down also. Couldn't email the customers or receive email for hours. This a joke, I'm paying 650 a week in Google Adwords BUT their stupid email is down! When was the last time Google Adwords was down for hours?
Posted by: ML | August 11, 2008 at 11:09 PM
For this crap huh. Well if its such crap why don't you pay for the business version of hotmail that microsoft has. Are you arraid it will load alot slower as a result of all those ads? Hotmail takes time to load, gmail just loads, so big deal if its down 1 or 2 hours out of 8760 hours in a year. What is that, like 99% uptime
Posted by: Dan | August 12, 2008 at 02:32 AM
2 hr outage? Huh? On Sunday, Aug. 10th, I could not access gmail from around midday EDT on... I tried off an on until I went to sleep at 10pm EDT.
Posted by: Alan | August 12, 2008 at 04:45 AM
I'm sorry to hear gmail is down, but really what can you expect for free?
When the service was down for your email which your life depends on, where you able to reach someone to get support-- I bet that answer was "no...".
Company's like TVC.Net and others offer email for a buck a month and you can bet had service been down with them you'd be able to at least call someone-- or even move your account quickly to another server and be back up in no time.
So do you depend on free and prefer the type of service you get with free (suppose you get what you pay for...)?
If you lost money due to using a free service methinks you only have you to blame.
Enjoy,
Jim
Posted by: Jim | August 12, 2008 at 01:52 PM
i can't log into gmail at all today - it says that the server is down. so frustrating!! i need my email to work.
Posted by: gina | August 12, 2008 at 02:53 PM
Big phocking deal.
Google do a better job of keeping their services up and running than the IT departments of ALL of the companies I've worked for (the majority beingl large, known companies).
Posted by: dude | August 13, 2008 at 10:46 AM
I also want to add the fact that email on the blackberry has had an outage all day and then some before. Why not the same amount of anger?
Posted by: Dan | August 14, 2008 at 10:27 AM
Dan, thanks for your comment. The Gmail outage did upset some people, but the BlackBerry outages were longer and prompted even more anger and despair. Here's a story we ran on the front page of the LA Times last year when a really big one hit the BlackBerry network.
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/apr/19/business/fi-blackberry19
Posted by: Chris Gaither | August 14, 2008 at 11:32 AM