So I received my invitation to Google Spreadsheets on Tuesday but I had to go to Chicago for a business meeting and I didn’t get a chance to play until this evening.

I’ve used it for twenty minutes and I’m already annoyed.

Where’s the context menu? Right-click doesn’t provide spreadsheet functionality - just standard browser functions.

Different tabs for formatting, sorting and formulae? Come on, those features ought to be available all the time - everywhere.

Why isn’t this automatically hooked up to Google Analytics? Aren’t the folks (us web analysts) using GA the perfect audience for this tool? Shouldn’t the two be ‘welded at the hip’?

And seriously no charting?

*YAWN*

I guess the social features are neato-keen but since I pretend to be a visual data analyst, who on earth would I want to share plain old, uninterpreted table data with?

David Card at Jupiter has got it right.

If I were looking for a web spreadsheet solution, I’d still be more interested in iRows.

This thing does not have the feeling of a real product yet, especially a Google Labs product.

I’ll keep an eye on it to see how (if) they innovate and expand but for the first cut, I am definitely underwhelmed.

P.S. Microsoft, take it for what it’s worth - a poke in your collective tiger’s eye. Don’t dismiss it, but I see no reason to run through the halls screaming “Google is coming! Google is coming!”

This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006 at 7:45 pm and is filed under charts, visualization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.