Google Gives Talk Users Something to Squawk About

The Google Talk chat application went some time on Wednesday night, provoking many users anger. Some said they switched temporarily to Skype or Twitter.

Google posted updates regularly its App Status website, and began restoring service on a rolling .

The problem apparently also the Google+ Hangouts service. Some reports said Gmail had also impacted.

"The problems Google Talk and Hangouts are now resolved everyone," Google spokesperson Iska Hain told TechNewsWorld. "We apologize for the ."

At 3:40 a.m., Google posted a notification on its App Status saying it was investigating reports of an issue Google Talk. Ten minutes later, it said the problem affected a majority users.

Users could access Google Talk but seeing error messages and other unexpected behavior. Google promised update by 4:30 a.m., by which it expected to solve the problem.

At 4:50, Google said it was continuing investigate the issue and would provide an update one hour later. The next two hourly bulletins said essentially the thing.

At 7:50 a.m. Google said that Google Talk service had been restored for some users. At 8:25, it said the problem should resolved and suggested that users who were still experiencing issues contact it the Google Help Center.

Outages like this "often happen as the of a hardware or software upgrade that wasn't properly tested before installation," Rob Enderle, principal analyst the Enderle Group, told TechNewsWorld.

Google Talk is a free service, which it a cost center, "so there is excessive focus doing things cheaply which can, and generally , result in outages," he explained. "You don't exactly get service guarantees free products."

Google's Hain trotted a stock statement about system reliability a top priority at Google that had been posted the company's App Status site.

Google's behavior users, "coupled with the massive discontinuing of services, is ongoing, will likely convert into distrust for the company and increased reliance products from other firms," Enderle warned.

The Internet giant plans to shut down a variety of services. These include the Google Mini search appliance; Google Talk Chatback; Google Video; iGoogle; and the Google Symbian Search App.

The shutdown of iGoogle sparked widespread user dissatisfaction, some launching threads on Google forums protesting the move.

Some Google Talk users have threatened to switch to other services of the outage.

The Google Talk outage "will certainly cause many to rethink Google communications," Enderle suggested. "As Google tries to increasingly sell businesses their professional offerings, failures like this will [militate] their adoption because they will translate distrust of Google's ability to provide reliable services in general."

Google "isn't communicating well all," Enderle pointed out. Its response the outage "continues to reflect a behavior that is anti-customer and serves as a major flag for anyone thinking of using a Google product anything."


Adapted and abridged from: Technewsworld, July 26, 2012.