The Latest Google Flatline

Talk about your coincidences. No sooner did we read Nick Gonzalez's Google Flatlines Again article in Techcrunch than we had a Google product let us down as well:

February 2, 2007: Google Pen Runs Out.

Scott Grieder, Ask.com Group Product Manager, was taking notes on an important conference call when his Google Pen ran out of ink without warning. The lapse in this fundamental Google product/service forced him to switch pens at a critical moment, resulting in considerable inconvenience and loss of data.

"I should have known better than to use a free Google product for business purposes." Scott told us in a recent interview. "Google Pen is fine for home use, but not when my company's productivity is on the line. I had to switch pens in the middle of taking notes. There's no telling how much data I lost."

Below is a screenshot showing the sudden drop in productivity as a result of the Google Pen flatlining:

The barrel and cartridge of the pen are transparent, allowing the user to see inside the pen, and presumably determine when Google Pen will run out of ink. But due to possibly sub-par materials, the ink stains the inside of the clear cartridge, giving the impression that the pen still has plenty of ink.

"Now I have to apply all my current behaviors and processes to another pen," Grieder explained. "How long will that take? I used to trust Google to stand behind their products. I guess I was wrong."

He added, "Thanks a lot, Google Pen. I guess you get what you pay for."

--The Ask.com Team

UPDATE: It's working again. Turns out there was ink in it after all. Thanks to Matt Cutts who suggested we "try shaking it a lot."

UPDATE: It just ran out again.