2.  Gmail Crash Brings Service Down Around the World

A widespread Gmail outage that began at around 3 p.m. ET sent panicked tremors through cyberspace as users turned to social networks to console one another. Gmail acknowledged the problem on its blog and posted several vague updates  on its dashboard, but service already appeared to be returning by 5:30 p.m. Twitter, meanwhile, is awash with lamentations on the subject. By 3 p.m., nearly 1 percent of all tweets mentioned Gmail, and by 4 that figure had skyrocketed to 7.5 percent of all tweets, according to Trendistic . There were even isolated reports of interest in Facebook Chat. As Wired notes , the timing is unfortunate for the company, which recently launched a "Going Google" campaign to take on Microsoft's death grip on office computing. Update, 6:00 p.m.: Gmail announces that service has been restored.

Read original story in Computerworld | Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2009

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