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[bimg=right]/uploaded/18/2/gmail-down.png[/bimg=right]The free Google Mail service, also known as GMail, has failed this morning.
Millions of users of the service were faced with HTTP 502's (and currently HTTP 403 Forbidden).
Is this newsworthy ? Well, in my opinion it isn't ; it's just a mail service like many others, and the fact that it fails is just something that happens sometime.
It's technology, and technology can break every now and then.
However, the reason why I write a frontpage article about it is the fact that several newsservices worldwide have posted this hickup as really important news ; the BBC has written a post about it, and so has The Guardian ("Gmail fails: Tech world grinds to a halt"), News24 ("Panic: Gmail turns into Gfail"), VNUNet ("Users panic as Google Mail goes down"), the Indian Times, Times Online, the Telegraph, and Venturebeat even uses the headline "Where were you during the great GMail Outage of February 2009".
Even several dutch newssources such as AT5, Trouw and Nu.nl have reports about it, as if it's breaking news.
On Twitter we see thousands and housands of agitated people tweeting their discomfort about having no access to their e-mail, calendars and contactlists.
All downright insane hysterical reactions to a simple hickup that lasted for less than 4 hours, if you'd ask me.
Okay, there may have been 113 million (!) users affected by this, and the people who've bought a superfly-fantastic Google phone G1 may have been unable to use their fancy phones for tha last four hours, but come on, it's just e-mail 
[bimg=right]/uploaded/18/2/unplug_and_play.png[/bimg=right]
It's not as if the power went down worldwide, or as if there is an economic crisis going on since this morning....
I could only hope that Google search, Gmail, Hotmail, Windows Live, MSN, and above all Twitter stop working later today, only to return after the weekend.  
Perhaps that will put things back into perspective, so we can focus on the really important things.
Mail, blogs and tweets sure aren't high on that priority list and if they are high on your list, please seek professional help.
Unplug, and play. 
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however for all other intents and purposes what the hell, I don't use gmail or hotmail anyway 