January 2, 2007

Google Woes, cont…

Michael Arrington

70 comments »

Status.blogger.com is the site that tells users what’s happening when the Google-owned Blogger site itself is down or is having performance issues. In a somewhat ironic situation, it has been offline for the last four days, and counting. The Blogger site itself seems to be doing fine.

It seems like whoever was in charge of keeping everything running smoothly at Google over the holidays may have been asleep at the wheel. The problems, some of which are out of Google’s control, keep piling up:

Google Notebook: Use the Privacy Option
Gmail Disaster: Reports Of Mass Email Deletions
Google Top Searches: Based on Everything and Nothing
Google’s Orkut Down For 13+ Hours
Google’s Tipping Point
Another Gmail Problem

Sphere It

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Comments

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Alex

January 2nd, 2007 at 4:44 pm

Talk about subjective reporting. Dude your google bashing is becoming more and more annoying as I become less and less interested in reading your articles. Keep it up. We obviously care.
Sam

January 2nd, 2007 at 4:53 pm

I agree with Alex, your google bashing is ridiculous, and really annoying.
Gaurav

January 2nd, 2007 at 4:56 pm

It works for (atleast) me
Will

January 2nd, 2007 at 4:59 pm

I agree that reporting of the news is good. However, being so critical isn’t needed.
Jon Davis

January 2nd, 2007 at 4:59 pm

How is it Google bashing when its the truth?

He’s not making up things. He’s reporting whats going on and relaying the observations that he and others have made about Google.

Google has and is continuing to make some mistakes and they can either listen to their customer base and fix those problems or ignore it and damage the reputation they’ve built up over the years.
Anita

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:01 pm

I couldn’t comment on blogger sites for about 4 hours yesterday. No idea if this was related, but it was quite annoying.

Google needs to start thinking about realing things in and focusing on search. Nobody really cares about most of their side projects …
jj

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:03 pm

DUDE - GET A LIFE
Watchthisvid

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:06 pm

Of course the most ironic thing is that if Google are having performance issues with this particular server, then linking to it on the frontpage of TechCruch certainly isn’t going to be helping things.

For extra points let’s see if this story gets Dugg and then we can really drag it down.
Andy Arnott

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:09 pm

People are such Google lovers… but what they fail to remember is that in the past these things were happening, it was just that people were dining on the all you can eat all positive Google menu. Now that that menu has gotten large, almost too large, people are starting to get sick on the side dishes that Google is serving up. If you make great burgers, stick with burgers… your chicken is gonna suck no matter what you do.

Man this comment is making me hungry

—————————————-
DISCLOSURE
—————————————-
This post sponsored by Microsoft (haha! Just kidding Michael)
Michael Arrington

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:10 pm

For the record, I have been praising Gmail and Google Reader quite a bit over the last week. Just calling it like I see it. When a site that Google hosts goes down for four days, it’s news, not bashing.
Tim

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:11 pm

is there nothing else to write about?
Jon

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:12 pm

When it rains… it pours… I guess Google had a dry streak which is now coming to an end. Hopefully this rain puts out any other fires that are in the works, otherwise it will be a tough year for Google to continually justify its overpriced stock!

Jon
Rulepark

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:16 pm

start going GAGA over google and concerntrate on other startup.
jon

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:21 pm

But does any of this really threaten their bottom line? All of these troubles may be indicative of something going bad at Google, but for the most part I can’t really see how this will cause anything close to a mass abandonment of the company’s services. Aren’t most of these services free? These problems will chip away at users’ trust in Google bit by bit, but that will be more of a gradual decline.

I think the biggest problem Google faces is Mike’s post a while ago about how Yahoo just brought out Panama and Microsoft has their superior demographic targeting in adCenter. That stuff goes directly at Google’s main source of money, and could really spell out problems in the future.
Rockwell

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:22 pm

Apparently no new porn sites to review today…
Adrian Keys

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:33 pm

“But does any of this really threaten their bottom line? All of these troubles may be indicative of something going bad at Google, but for the most part I can’t really see how this will cause anything close to a mass abandonment of the company’s services”. - Jon

Jon, you are right on the money. I do enjoy TC but some of the pieces, as I guess with any other Blog, should be flagged.
carmen

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:33 pm

yep.. bash all you want, none of this is going to stop joe’s cab repair shack from advertising with them, or whoever it is that is paying into their obscene revenue figures.. early-adopters and downtime-nitpick freaks arent buying or clicking their ads anwtyays
Eric Xu

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:45 pm

I’ve been a loyal reader of your blog and I know that you’re most-of-the-time a google praiser. I definitely don’t think that you’re trying to bash google. It’s just that it becomes uninteresting when there’re so many pieces on “google service’s down”.
We know it’s the holidays. now, the holidays are over. Let’s look forward to some good stuff.
Zoli Erdos

January 2nd, 2007 at 5:50 pm

I’m always amazed at the religious Google-defenders. Facts are facts, and all this trouble piling on is really … hm .. ironic. Stating the obvious is not Google bashing. Relax, everyone, noone is hurting your baby
Benedict Herold

January 2nd, 2007 at 6:16 pm

I apparently remember excerpt from Seth’s talk at Google http://www.benh.org/vlog/2006/.....are-liars/

Seth points out clearly about Google’s trouble with “Release Early. Release Often” . May be its time for Google to rethink of it’s Strategy soon. Since it’s really facing a bad season these days..!! Still we need to accept the fact Google’s success initially was possible only with this strategy..
jj

January 2nd, 2007 at 6:29 pm

I guess we shouldn’t have complained about Natali… Look what we got instead of her. LOL
Aditya

January 2nd, 2007 at 6:29 pm

The status is up and running fine! And I agree with the comments here. It is not news when just one source is constantly re-iterated over and over again. We have been seeing nothing but how Google has been goofing up over here, which by the list of Google articles listed in this post, you cannot deny.

I am not a Google fanboy by any means, but I even I can figure out when something is being targeted unfairly. Google has been plugging holes at the same rate (if not faster) that they’re coming up. There aren’t that many to plug to begin with.

Please, move on off of Google. Let’s go back to the Internet!
Doeboy

January 2nd, 2007 at 6:50 pm

Alex, Sam and other haters. probably work for google. ha

I don’t know why people have the audacity to comment on Mike & others subject matter. It’s a BLOG people, they can write on whatever you want.
If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. I don’t see many people commenting on other’s blogs saying “stupid topic”. This is all due to the fact that TC has simply become an amazing resource for many people and now they are becoming more critical & demanding. sometimes they fail to remember that it’s free.

Also MA, good job on showing constraint - it must be really tempting to rebuttle lame comments….
Michael Arrington

January 2nd, 2007 at 6:50 pm

I have not targeted Google, fairly or unfairly. If you look at the post immediately following this one you’ll see that I am a big fan of gmail and google reader. But my opinion stands - when a site hosted by Google or any other big company goes down for four days, it’s news.
Ripper

January 2nd, 2007 at 6:57 pm

I agree with Michael that it is in fact news. I also agree with Anita up top about Google getting their focus.
lemon obrien

January 2nd, 2007 at 6:59 pm

this is the microsoft effect; when you get big; people target you…the thing is, google is getting hit with unique web viruses…which are now just being created…i use online email for business; but not google.

you also have to realize strategically how this plays for google’s online office/os plans.

email’s being deleted and contacts being lost is a big deal.

you get better by hiring people like me for lots of money…
David Mackey

January 2nd, 2007 at 7:02 pm

None of the problems thus far have been major.
Frank Cefalu

January 2nd, 2007 at 7:03 pm

Michael, I have given you my site to review 1 month and half ago with your on site form… How long does it take?
Not Cool

January 2nd, 2007 at 7:14 pm

Agree it may be news.

Also agree that I am sick of hearing about Google - there are 1000s of other more interesting start ups.

Google searches - thats it. I dont give a shit about anything else they produce.

Do more coverage on the small startups - like Google once was.
Gaurav

January 2nd, 2007 at 7:22 pm

Michael,

Thanks for getting rid with those annoying snap popups. I don’t have issues with Google bashing. I visit TC to read about interesting start-ups, new and innovative business plans. It is a bit disappointing when I find so many posts about Google, not beacause of their innovation but some _genuine_ mess ups. I’d rather like to read more about Polar Rose or Scrybe.
edwardk

January 2nd, 2007 at 7:26 pm

“None of the problems thus far have been major.” Hmm, lets just recap:

1. gmail security hole giving up users contacts
2. gmail mass e-mail deletions
3. orkut down for 22 hours
4. etc.

What would the reaction be like if these were Microsoft outages? The double standards in the blogosphere are outrageous.

Lets face it, any outages at all cast doubt on the viability of Web 2.0 itself. Google needs to be far more responsible with respect to availability and security.
Trygve Throntveit

January 2nd, 2007 at 7:29 pm

Who cares. Michael Arrington please return to real stories. Are you so desperate for stories that you have to report on this crap?

“Website XYZ is down.”

Wow! Great story!

Please.
bg

January 2nd, 2007 at 7:37 pm

another thing; on the personalized page, when you try to add modules, it says ‘added,’ -but it isn’t. Google has released a lot of things, but do any of them get used a lot?

have you really used Earth for anything other than a curiosity spin?
Brad

January 2nd, 2007 at 7:59 pm

The sensationalist language is lame.

“Gmail Disaster: Reports Of Mass Email Deletions” — The word “of” is not capitalized in titles. Also, you already reported that this was a confined situation that only affected a small number of users. How is that a “disaster” involving “mass email deletions”? Give it a break.

Reporting Google’s woes is fine, but call it like it is rather than like all the rest of the ridiculous sensationalist media.
Survival Shows

January 2nd, 2007 at 8:03 pm

Every company has some problems so far these seem very minor.
paul

January 2nd, 2007 at 8:05 pm

Well guess what? Google Reader has been down for me all day - all I get is a “Loading” screen.

I sent mail to the address they recommended and got an auto-respoder saying that they don’t respond to any mail and that I should use the newsgroup instead.

All you Google-lovers need to get a life. They’re stumbling badly over the last few weeks and are not being professional about how they deal with the issues.

Perhaps their emergency response team is in beta. At any rate, stating something’s wrong isn’t bashing, it’s stating a fact.

Deal
Michael Arrington

January 2nd, 2007 at 8:09 pm

Brad - I said “mass” for two reasons. First, at the time of writing, it was unclear how many people it affected, but for those it did affect, ALL of their email was deleted. As soon as Google sent an email, I posted it. As to the proper capitalization of posts, well…I guess I’m going to keep doing what I do.

SS - yes, every site has problems, and we generally report them when they are serious. Google is in a special place, because right now they are trying to convince the world that their servers are secure enough to store business documents on them. The fact that they have uptime and security issues is a major thorn in their side, and one that can impact them in their race to kill Office.

Now, as I’ve said three times now, I have given Google some serious love over the last few weeks. If you don’t like posts like this, just skip them. But stop trying to tell me what is appropriate and inappropriate for us to write about via an anonymous comment. It’s fun to read, but it won’t impact our policies.
Josh

January 2nd, 2007 at 8:10 pm

I think its important for us to remember that Gmail is still in beta.

Aside from that, one post about this should do. The constant coverage is redundant.

I would rather you tell me about a start up.
Frank Cefalu

January 2nd, 2007 at 8:13 pm

I still dont see the reason why you need to justify yourself. You wrote it, your the editor in chief period. If someone isnt contributing delete the comment. Constructive comments only. And guess what to those who complain, you can complain elsewhere.Seriously.
Michael Arrington

January 2nd, 2007 at 8:26 pm

Gmail is certainly not a beta product, regardless of what the logo or Google says.
Frank Cefalu

January 2nd, 2007 at 8:28 pm

Mike, go watch some tv. These guys are just trolling.
lemon obrien

January 2nd, 2007 at 8:33 pm

it’s probably google employees. if i had tons of money, i’d pay people to make sure i got good press, or spin it so i still looked good; google just has to take advise at this point…bad press is better than no press.
Beau

January 2nd, 2007 at 8:37 pm

“I have not targeted Google, fairly or unfairly.”

“Google is in a special place”

You’re walking a very, very thin line here dude, and not very well. Some of the issues you’ve reported on have merit (Gmail outages, Orkut being down), but some of them, especially the “tipping point” post, are more of looking for a problem than reporting on one. There is a difference.
Rob Ellis

January 2nd, 2007 at 8:38 pm

MA - Office Killer?!? Would you put you sensitive doc’s online when you know one, the product will most likely beta for 2 years, and two fall out side there 70% and maybe there 20% products development space?

I would like to see the company generate more then 25% of its revenue outside advertising before I give them more content to inject ads into.

RE
lemon obrien

January 2nd, 2007 at 9:00 pm

@Beau

wow, that seemed like a direct threat. if you’re from google you need to relax the huburis and think “customer”

google is a public company; its stock price, along with everything else, is news at this point.
Patrick Grote

January 2nd, 2007 at 9:02 pm

Everyone has thought that Google can scale as much as needed, but can they? Are some of these issues, including search, related to capacity?
Rex Dixon

January 2nd, 2007 at 9:06 pm

Google makes a great read for some. For other people, all they want to read about is the next hot company. If you don’t want to read about Google, just jump over to somewhere else. I’m sure Mike will be uncovering the next “FreakDesignWeAreNotPhotoShop” site before the night is done. He always does, and that is why I check his site daily.

Right now, there are some major issues at Google, and I’m sure as big as they are, they are scrambling this week to fix it all. You know, so the blogosphere will get off their back!

Rex
Frank Cefalu

January 2nd, 2007 at 9:27 pm

@Beau

Beau Dietl? If this is Beau Dietl, you got problsm Micheal lol.
Beau

January 2nd, 2007 at 9:33 pm

No, I don’t work at Google, so it’s hardly a threat in that sense. It just seems like this site is in such a rush to find the “next Google” that it may be over-eager in tearing down the current one.
falcon

January 2nd, 2007 at 9:47 pm

Google has become incredibly important in many of our daily lives. It has huge amount of information about us. The author most certainly should look at Google with a critical eye. Don’t worry about those who complain about your ‘google bashing.’

“To whom much is given, much is expected.”
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”
etc., etc.
Evil Goog

January 2nd, 2007 at 9:54 pm

Mike - keep up the great posts.

The truth of the matter is that Google is abusing the piles of cash they collected from 401k and pension funds. Why are they spending so much money on projects that they can’t make money on? simple - because they can afford it. Just as microsoft drove dozens of software companies out of the market by giving WordPad for free. In effect - they killed any small company that could have grown to compete with MS-WORD - no matter how good this small company is - they can’t compete with a free product.

Google in effect is doing the same? I work for a software company that actually sells software services. Our products are much higher in quality than google’s. Our customer’s would not tolerate 13 hour downtime!. However, we do charge for services and google doesn’t. They can afford it because they raised 9B $ in cash and wall street allows them to get away with those stupidities.
not anony

January 2nd, 2007 at 9:59 pm

Guys, you need to relax. It is not a crime to be critical of Google. Just thank your stars that Michael is just reporting on service problems and he is not wasting our time uncovering conspiracies of Google being in bed with the CIA!

Cheers!
Srini

January 2nd, 2007 at 10:35 pm

Can you blame Mike? Any mundane post about Google brings traffic and at least 50 comments.

Techcrunch and other blogs are all about the traffic.

We, the audience, are to blame.
Nemrut

January 2nd, 2007 at 11:39 pm

Mike - keep up the informative posts — esp about Google.

People forget that without Google and the ‘long tail’ it created none of this web 2.o ajaxiness would have had as much traction and media coverage.
daya

January 2nd, 2007 at 11:57 pm

have been Google lover, and have been using all the Google service as they come out, and have been experience googles horrible service nowdays.

When they came out with their Picasa web album invite, I am one of the few who crabbed it first and have been enjoying their service.

I finished my 250Mb photo upload option in few days Since, my storage limit has finished, I had only two option, either to delete the photos I have uploaded, else, upgrade my storage by paying so that, I could upload new photos.

Hence, I decided to pay and opt for 6 GB storage, Since, the time, I have upgraded my storage to 6 GB, for last 15 days, trying day and night, all that I could upload was mere 2 MB of photos, while the free 250MB storage of photo were uploaded in a day or two.

I checked all that possible tweaks, and tricks, even try to use the web browser based upload but not use. I wrote to Google, as usual, when in trouble, Google never replies.

Tried their forums, groups, help, FAQ, no use at all.

The worst think happen is that, I recommended Picasa service two of my friend, who just like me, opt for the paid upgradation of their storage, since, they also, have similar story of not able to upload any photos or if at all they could do just one photo in a day.

So As on now, just sticking back to flickr and riya photo upload service.

So, dear user, be careful, think twice, before upgrading to goggles Picasa 6GB or any paid storage.
Johan

January 3rd, 2007 at 12:05 am

Hahaha! You commenters make me laugh! Please breathe a bit and realize that Michael is NOT writing about your mothers so please do not react so offended…

I think it is very interesting to see how Michael is noticing a trend at Google and maybe in about a year after the collapse of the Google empire you will all see how right he was (or maybe not, but it still is newsworthy to me).
Chris

January 3rd, 2007 at 12:39 am

Google is just taking on too much too quickly. They need to go back to their previous way of working. They did one thing at a time and they did it well. Now they’re grabbing everything they can and doing it all at once. It’s a stupid way to work. They need to concentrate on one or two services at a time and making them work perfectly.
Tarry Singh

January 3rd, 2007 at 1:23 am

I must admit, TechCrunch and even GigaOM are turning into some really frustrated folks. I guessed these guys/gals are being snubbed by industry folks and any hope of selling their *blog* (duh) to anyone is rapidly disappearing.

And hey after all these guys are just bloggers who get to shoulder the barrel on their shoulder while someone else fires.
Rulepark

January 3rd, 2007 at 1:32 am

Mike, dun resign cuz of this unharmful comments…hahaha….
Frank

January 3rd, 2007 at 8:26 am

And the google mail deletion, had nothing to do with google! they were firefox bugs!
Cleverr

January 3rd, 2007 at 8:34 am

I think aggregating the woes into one post and referencing them may, given the popularity of this blog, push us closer to the Google tipping point. We inherently seek patterns and risk sensationalizing minor issues: “Google problems? Oh no, Google problems! Oh, here’s a few more Google problems! Just like the rest of the Google problems! Google is problematic! Oh no! What am I going to do now?!”

I found Google in 2000 and it was the underdog. To me it will always be that underdog, doing useful things, benevolently, in the face of so much Machiavellian evil in Redmond, in spite of it’s +/- 50% share of the search market.

I think a lot of the comments above are missing the point: this is obviously not a ploy to get more traffic to TechCrunch. I agree that there continues to be balanced reporting. Relating similar issues might be interpreted as a slant here, but that interpretation would be wrong.

What I don’t like is the potential for snowballing negativity that linking 6 recent Google problems has on the perception of reality in the minds of those who won’t read the actual posts. Hopefully informed, rational readers will see past it.
shortshire

January 3rd, 2007 at 10:16 am

Google guy must of had one crazy New Years. My Gmail is down with the 766 error. I checked with others and they had the same problem. A few months ago I was having problems with their analytics. The analytics is working now but it was a pain back then.

Google just needs to take a breath and fix a few little bugs. Everyone that is trying to out Google Google, will capitalize on these things so Google just needs to take a breath and then go full force.
Shawn

January 3rd, 2007 at 12:52 pm

Blogger Status page seems to be up for me. Took this image just a couple minutes ago.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sr74/344480729/
Jorge

January 3rd, 2007 at 2:11 pm

Thank you for filing coming to terms with your Google addiction, Mike.

It took a while, but you finally realized that Google is the next Evil Empire. At least MS didn’t have the temerity to claim that their evil acts were actually disguised benevolence.
Bazily

January 22nd, 2007 at 10:45 pm

Google Blog Search is down tonight, add it to the list!