Image used with permission by copyright holderUpdate 3/17/14 4:19 p.m. ET: Google’s app status dashboard indicates that all of their services are currently online and are experiencing “No issues,” according to the legend on the page.

　　Gchat is experiencing some technical issues today, with many users of the popular IM chat service reporting that they’re unable to send and receive messages. We initially suspected that there was an issue once multiple people here in the Digital Trends’ New York offices received “did not receive your chat” notifications after attempting to send IMs to one another. However, a quick look at Google’s official status page for Google Talk indicates that there is indeed a service problem.

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　　Google posted a Google Talk dashboard update at 12:22 pm, which currently reads:

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　　“We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google Talk. We will provide more information shortly.”

　　A few quick glances around the Internet confirmed that this was indeed at least a somewhat widespread issue for Google’s messaging service.

　　Gchat users fled to Twitter to complain about how they can’t chat. Image used with permission by copyright holderThough there are also reports indicating that there have been issues with Google Drive, the tech firm’s cloud service, we took a look at our own accounts, and for the most part, we had no issues. However, Google’s app dashboard also indicates that Google Sheets, Drive’s spreadsheet service, has experienced a “Service disruption” as of 12:47 p.m. today. Google is currently investigating that matter as well. The dashboard also indicates a Google+ Hangouts disruption as of 12:22 p.m.

　　Google’s cloud and chat services are generally reliable, which is part of the reason why they’re so widely used. However, the downside to that is when those services do encounter issues, it impacts a significant amount of people across multiple backgrounds: students, professionals and other as well. This is actually not the first Google service outage of the year: a hiccup occurred in late January and left users without Gmail and Google Talk access for 15 minutes. Prior to that, Google Talk also went down a few hours in July of 2012.

　　Image Credit: Wallnen.com