Google deletes its own official blog by mistake

[Bob Russell]

ComputerWorld is reporting that "Google Inc. has mud on its face after staffers accidentally deleted the company's main official blog Monday night and a user unaffiliated with Google temporarily took possession of the Web address." There is, of course, a general aptmosphere of sensationalism on the web and in the press about these sorts of mistakes, and the buzz usually far exceeds the real impact of the event.

Still, it's quite an embarrassing event for Google. They are unquestionably a tech leader, and as a company Google has pulled off success after success. But over time we are seeing that even the stars at Google are human after all.

In true Google style, there was an official response that included "The blog was mistakenly deleted by us (d'oh!) which allowed the blog address to be temporarily claimed by another user. This was not a hack, and nobody guessed our password. Our bad..." Personally, this sort of response is much more appealing than some formal and complicated and obtuse explanation aimed at spinning the story.

Despite the inevitable finger pointing and dirt raising stories, Google remains a tremendous success in the world of web businesses, and its secret future plans remain some of the topics most highly speculated about. We are all waiting to see how they might change the world... or at least the way we use the web.