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When Gmail Went Down, Yahoo Poked Fun On Twitter, Then Apologized

Gmail was down briefly today, and Yahoo — which suffered its own and much longer-lasting email woes recently — still decided it was a good opportunity to have some fun, tweeting about the failure then later apologizing. Yahoo shared the news to its Twitter followers that “Gmail is temporarily unavailable,” with a picture of the […]

Danny Sullivan on January 24, 2014 at 2:50 pm

Gmail was down briefly today, and Yahoo — which suffered its own and much longer-lasting email woes recently — still decided it was a good opportunity to have some fun, tweeting about the failure then later apologizing.

Yahoo shared the news to its Twitter followers that “Gmail is temporarily unavailable,” with a picture of the Gmail error page, as shown above. The tweet has since been deleted.

Perhaps it might have been argued that Yahoo wasn’t meaning to poke fun at all but be informative. However, that seemed unlikely (and especially so given Yahoo’s apology). There was little reason for Yahoo to be telling its followers, which it hopes will use Yahoo Mail, about what was happening with Gmail.

The move seemed especially risky for Yahoo, since Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer apologized last month for Yahoo for Yahoo Mail woes that went on for days, for some of its Yahoo Mail users.

Some Thought It Funny

At the time we originally posted our story, Yahoo’s tweet had been retweeted over 1,500 times and favorited over 500. There were any number of “ah, snap” replies that seemed to find it in good humor:

Ooooh snap! “@Yahoo: Gmail is temporarily unavailable pic.twitter.com/oIEx0kdWnb” — RICHELLE CAREY (@RichelleCarey) January 24, 2014

Some Didn’t

But there were also plenty that didn’t, such as:

It’s ok. Your Mail system is worse than Hotmail. I’ll wait for GMail. RT @Yahoo Gmail is temporarily unavailable pic.twitter.com/vp9vnqTrG4 — JustinGreen2014 (@JGreenDC) January 24, 2014

That’s like Kia making fun of BMW… RT .@Yahoo Gmail is temporarily unavailable pic.twitter.com/a0H0HMEctb — Jeff Ferguson (@CountXero) January 24, 2014

i like how Yahoo pokes fun at Gmail going down when, last year, Yahoo Mail went down for *days* and nobody even know. — Rotimi Oyewole (@rowteeme) January 24, 2014

yahoo hired marissa mayer as its ceo so it could tell you when gmail is down and then not down anymore — dan (@dcseifert) January 24, 2014

Gmail Stays Quiet On Twitter

Of course, Gmail had its own failure on Twitter. Despite so much commenting about Gmail going down, Gmail’s twitter account tweeted nothing in the hour or so when Gmail went down:

As Techmeme founder Gave Rivera joked, say anything:

Hey @Gmail, you might want to RT this from @Yahoo: https://t.co/vnvjXisWQM Or really, just tweet anything for starters.
— Gabe Rivera (@gaberivera) January 24, 2014

Since we originally posted this story, however, the Gmail account has retweeted the Google twitter account saying that most services are now OK.

The Apology

We’ve updated our headline and our story above to reflect that Yahoo has now apologized over the tweet to Google and Gmail, saying it “reflected bad judgment” and that the tweet has been deleted:

Earlier today, a tweet that reflected bad judgment was posted and has been deleted. We apologize to @Google and the @Gmail team.
— Yahoo (@Yahoo) January 24, 2014

About The Author

Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, MarTech Today and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.