On my own… no thanks to Google. I was unable to get to the gmail login screen even after blowing out the cache, deleting the cookie, doing a dance and sacrificing a baby goat. The gmail community forum was useless and absent of any apparent contact mechanism I put out a call for help here and on Twitter.

Thanks to Zoli, Jake, and Steve for stepping up to help with Google contacts.

As I was writing an email to Jeff Huber I had a thought… what if I went into another Google app and tried to backdoor into gmail? So into google docs I went, clicked on the gmail link and whatdayaknow, it loaded. It is still a mystery why the app thought it was undergoing maintenance and would not reset.

To be really objective, this isn’t a big inconvenience, the sun still rose this morning, but what this does suggest is that Google’s apps are starting to show some cracks. Indeed, I received several emails from people saying that they have noticed unexplained behaviors in Google apps and suspect performance in recent months.

Google’s greater ambitions of gaining significant application market share will surely be frustrated if the company doesn’t rethink their approach to customer support. Simply put, it is awful. Being free shouldn’t mean fend for yourself… they are getting paid for these apps, just not by users.