In what seems to be another example of things not to do when you are running an online service, people all over the world earlier today received a rather mysterious e-mail from HBO Max. Simply titled as Integration Test Email #1, the content is equally baffling as well.
As you can see from the screenshot below, the e-mail contained just one sentence:
Immediately, many users shared the e-mail alongside their own theory regarding it on social media. Even famed director James Gunn had received the e-mail as well, he tweeted:
Hoping the Integration Test Email #1 I just got from @hbomax is somehow the first step in extremely clever viral marketing for #Peacemaker. 🕊️🔫☮️
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) June 18, 2021
Many theorised that HBO might have deployed or tested something on a live system instead of containing it within a sandbox which is something that many system administrators, developers, engineers, and managers might deem as a big no-no.
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As for the official explanation, here’s what HBO Max had to say:
We mistakenly sent out an empty test email to a portion of our HBO Max mailing list this evening. We apologize for the inconvenience, and as the jokes pile in, yes, it was the intern. No, really. And we’re helping them through it. ❤️
— HBOMaxHelp (@HBOMaxHelp) June 18, 2021
Yup, blame the intern, as always. Nevertheless, we are still curious on how large is this so-called mailing list and what exactly is this integration all about, especially relating to the fact that the e-mail address that we have here is not being used to sign up for HBO Max.
Then again, it was indeed used for a standalone HBO Go account, although the account attached to this e-mail address no longer maintained an active subscription after we were done with Zack Synder’s Justice League. With HBO Max officially coming to Malaysia soon, we do wonder if the “integration tests” are related to the service’s market expansion on this side of the world.
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