news…

I posted about Google Spreadsheets recently, and why I thought it wasn’t really a good step for Google, since their product lacked features of already-available online spreadsheets and didn’t really have a chance at attracting a large user …

There’s in fact another one by us called EditGrid.

One thing that may interests you is that we allows a lot more choices of sharing: share to a user, share to public, and share with password. You can also fine-tune whether people can read or write. We tried to make the link for sharing the spreadsheet more human readable, and here’s an example: http://www.editgrid.com/tnc/pk....._v._Google. If you append “.xls” to the end of the url, you can even get the exported version immediately!

So you may wish to try it also!

=)

I watched the WikiCalc screencast and it is very cool that you can make cells into their own Wikis within the spreadsheet though!

A quick congratulations to fellow Enterprise Street Irregular Ross Mayfield and Socialtext who just announced a significant partnership with Dan Bricklin. Long-time techheads recognize Bricklin as the co-inventor of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet prog…

I saw your post earlier this week about google spreadsheets and with this both this products are nothing new. I don’t see why one would be better than the other.

Spreadsheets (Excel) is used for more things that just putting data in a table. Being able to extend excel using macros is the biggest feature that people use in enterprises and even small businesses. Some of them actually only have excel to manage their sales and inventory and such. Yet it’s a poor choice providing all the technology and software out there but it makes for a smoother learning curve for the users. And that’s where the power of Excel and even Office lays. Small web apps are not going to revolutianize it.

This may come out as a rant, that is not the intent it’s more of a why all the hype for nothing.

Now that I’ve had the chance to play with Google Spreadsheets a bit, here are my initial reactions: Overall, it’s a well-constructed implementation of Ajax. In most ways, the app behaves like a software application not a web app. Response…

Google’s real-time editing however, allows spreadsheets to be edited in a conversational fasion, with a chat function alongside it.

While I agree that Google is overrated in general as the darling of the internet, and they have MANY issues to work out with Google Spreadsheets, they do provide a compelling entry into the market.

No Tags……

http://mael.le.hir.free.fr/blo.....-tableurs/

Jotspot just announced that Tracker will be included in all of the new wikis. Previously, Tracker was standalone and you had to pay for it separately.

I think you’re right to deem this more interesting than Google’s effort. It’s surprising to me that the issue of storing information in a 3rd party (say Google’s) control isn’t taken more seriously. Especially in light of recent incidents of data loss and control. I would have thought that awareness would have improved, esp for readers of this blog :). I work for a company where the idea of storing corporate data in a Google spreadsheet has the same attraction has having a load of bricks fall on my head. wikiCalc, now is a different matter. Much more relevant. If the idea of Google spreadsheets is to only handle home and personal spreadsheets - well it’s not destined for much relevance. Google’s approach only makes sense if this is a prelude to a product - a la the wikiCalc model.

1) Spreadsheets usually make sense in the context of an unstructured conversation. Oftentimes this conversation happens in a series of emails with spreadsheets attached (or, in more advanced cases, links to spreadsheets on a shared filesystem). The ability to embed or link spreadsheets in the context of a conversation (now moved to a wiki page) makes complete sense.

2) You get rid of the email thread problems (disjointed threads), and the version control problem that happens with spreadsheet attachments. Also, when the spreadsheets are eventually forgotten, they at least grow old and moldy along with their original context.

Of course, adoption is another story. Email+attachments works because it’s a well-trodden path, and the email client is always open. It’s difficult to push people to groupware unless there’s a critical mass. (I apologize in advance for referring to a wiki as groupware.)

Yes, the principle is great but people’s requirements will soon be greater than most application’s ability to handle them.

Something like wikicalc or irows, where the online spreadhseet is their bread and butter will excel (pun intended!) when they create power tools more comparable to the ultimate of spreadsheets apps., MSFT Excel.

La sortie du tableur Google a fait beaucoup parler d?elle dans les pauses café et elle fait couler déjà pas mal d?encre (ou plutôt a fait travailler pas mal de claviers). De la réaction étonnée de quelques uns (Wow, je ne savais pas……