Gmail is down

Gmail, usually one of the most reliable email site on the Internet has been down for a few hours today.  

Google has taken a bit of a beating for not responding within an acceptable time (3 hours).

I don’t use my Gmail as my primary email account so I’ve not really suffered but one thing I have noticed is the sheer number of people on Twitter that have tweeted about it (you notice things like that when you have >10,000 followers!).  When something like this happens then the speed at which is can travel throughout the microblogsphere is quite incredible.

Google is in a little bit of a difficult position due to their massive profile and the huge numbers of people relying on their services.  However, even in the recent past the fall-out wouldn’t be anywhere near as big due to the time it would take to write a blog post and for people to get around to reading it.  But now, with Twitter, the failure can be common knowledge literally within 30 seconds – they’ve even coined a new term: “Gfail”.

If you run an online service that is even remotely popular then I’d recommend including a way to deal with Twitter in your disaster recovery plan!