And that killed them.
Let’s go back in time to see what happened to EditGrid’s index page.
May 2006
Back in May 2006, EditGrid was so young, unpolished and innocent. Bare-bone visual design. They even had the guts to include a screenshot captured under Windows XP’s blue theme of blindness (well, at least they used Firefox).
August 2007
Then a year later in August 2007, they were much more inline with the other 2.0 kids. Bright colors and a bolder visual design, public spreadsheets and templates at the front page, random charts, tag cloud, trackback and more. Putting public spreadsheets at the index page was a very important move. That allowed first-time visitors to try the service extremely easily. When I first visited them at the time, at least I tried to load a spreadsheet to see what they’d got.
November 2007
And now, probably under the influence of the investment…!??!!?!?!?!? Web 1.0 visual design, boring paragraph-long information that no one reads, and no public spreadsheets on the index page. WTF? WTF?!?!?!? WTF?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!? THEY REMOVED PUBLIC SPREADSHEETS ON THE INDEX PAGE! I tried to locate one on the linked pages, but I couldn’t. Now I can’t even tell whether they have improved their AJAX responsiveness (which used to be quite bad a few months ago). I don’t know whether there are any real people using it. I don’t know what are the possibilities of a online spreadsheet.
OK, as I’m writing this I recall that there is a small link called “use case” which I didn’t follow. (Since when did this phrase entered common usage anyway?) The link brings you to a page titled “Use Cases & Business Templates”, duh. Project Management, Business Accounting, Sales, Human Resources. (There are “View Online” links that open the corresponding template and you can actually try the service. Just not real data like it used to be.)
Repeat after me: EditGrid as we know it is DEAD. The Web 2.0 viral, friendly, spreadsheets-for-everyone EditGrid is DEAD. Enter the new EdtiGrid. A web spreadsheet service for business.
They even used a Mac to capture screenshots now, probably just to Look Cool.
Wish them well and all. Seeing a Hong Kong-based software company succeed makes me feel good. But no, it’s not the same EditGrid we knew.
6 comments
Comments feed for this article
November 22, 2007 at 11:14
David
Thanks for this post. 🙂
By this comment, just to let you know we’re not dead yet.
The old homepage has its merits and demerits. We’re still in the stage of trying out what works the best. Thanks for your kind reminder.
David
EditGrid Team
November 23, 2007 at 04:14
Ryan Fung
Congratulations on the success of EditGrid.
I believe you guys have your valid reasons to move away from “spreadsheets for everyone” to “spreadsheets for business”. I’m not against EditGrid or anything. It’s just a bit sad to see it moving away from the market segment that I’m in.
Just so you know.
Thanks for reading and the comment.
November 28, 2007 at 19:26
David
Very soon you will see the community concept of EditGrid re-born in a better way. I’ll keep you posted.
David
May 19, 2008 at 20:10
EditGrid Blog » Blog Archive » A new look to EditGrid.com
[…] part of 2007 that displaying popular spreadsheets was a hit with users and visitors and have had harsh criticism when we changed […]
November 22, 2008 at 00:34
David
Exactly one year after your post – our community feature is reborn with much greater depth. Please try: http://www.editgrid.com/explore.
November 23, 2008 at 21:32
Ryan Fung
Very cool. Congratulations on the significant improvements made in the year. Good job! 😀