On Monday, Google’s popular Gmail e-mail service suffered a paralyzing server problem, leaving millions of users with no access to their accounts for several hours. Blogs and forums around the Internet were buzzing with angry and confused comments by Gmail users, proving just how indispensable the service has become to the day to day lives of many people.
For about two hours on Monday, Gmail users encountered a nondescript error page when attempting to access their e-mail accounts. Google went out of their way to apologize for the server trouble, with Gmail product manager Todd Jackson posting on the official Gmail blog, “we heard loud and clear today how much people care about their Gmail accounts.”
And care they do: Google’s web-based e-mail service continues to grow at an astonishing rate, though oddly, it is still listed as a “beta” release, even after years of successful service, and garnering a large and loyal fan base which includes some of the most savvy Internet users around.
Actually, it’s not surprising that some Gmail users reacted so emotionally to the service blackout. In many ways, Gmail has become a utility, just like electricity or phone service, and users have become ever more reliant on the service. The level of functionality offered by Gmail, such as a comprehensive e-mail search, built in chat, media players and conversation labeling has helped Google establish a new standard for e-mail, which few other services can match.
The Gmail blackout on Monday got many users thinking, “what did I do before Gmail?” Before the days of Gmail, and other advanced online e-mail programs, Windows users were stuck with Outlook, which to many seemed less than user-friendly, and lacked the comprehensive search and labeling functions now common in Gmail and a few other web-based services.
The service outage on Monday also clearly demonstrates another point: Gmail has been a remarkably consistent and stable web platform. So much so in fact, that the brief two hour outage on Monday seemed like an eternity for many people, simply because they had never experienced being “locked out” of their Gmail account before. It just doesn’t happen that often.
But even great and powerful companies online — like Google, or Gmail — can incur the same errors and routine server meltdowns as anyone else. While Monday’s episode will likely not be the last time Gmail suffers an internal error and is inaccessible, overall, Google has done a great job with Gmail by keeping it simple and stable — exactly what we expect from a utility.
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