Well, almost. Thanks to Compete and subsequent coverage from TechCrunch we are able, for the first time, to perform apple-to-apple usage comparison with Google Spreadsheets and Zoho Sheet. This was not possible in our previous attempt because traffic breakdowns on docs.google.com and zoho.com were not available to the general public.

So, how does EditGrid stand among Google Spreadsheets and Zoho Sheet, the three major player in this sector to date?

Not bad, though still lots of room for improvement. In a typical eat-our-own-dogfood fashion I have, once again, plotted the statistics on an online spreadsheet on EditGrid. One of the most important findings is that EditGrid stands way above Zoho Sheet in terms of unique visitors, and actually outscores Zoho Sheet in terms of pageviews by more than twofold. EditGrid also compares favourably with its partner ThinkFree Office, doing better in all three metrics despite ThinkFree having the complete suite. Surely there’s still some way to go before EditGrid can catch up on Google Spreadsheets, given its platform strategy with its Gmail integration, yet the statistics have also shown that EditGrid has cemented its place as the second most popular online spreadsheet in the market.

How accurate is this picture, though? As with the last publicly available statistics on Google Docs from Nielson//NetRatings (link to PDF here), the Compete statistics have serious limitations — most importantly it covers only the US market, where Google is the strongest. EditGrid (and, to a certain extent, Zoho and ThinkFree) targets a worldwide market and do indeed have a broad user base from all over the world, having seen the first million-view financial spreadsheet from Hongkong. Our own statistics on Google Analytics back up this claim: in terms of both unique visitors and pageviews, we boast a much better figure than those on Compete.

(NB: the November 2007 statistics are not complete as data from 2007-11-01 to 2007-11-13 are not counted. See the “Notes” sheet for details.)

Being second in market is not something that we are proud of. We will continue to improve the product and drive real use-cases to make EditGrid the most popular online spreadsheet despite Google’s platform effect. It’s hard, but doable. And we’d be interested to know if we remove “Google” from Google Spreadsheets, and let user choose purely from the product quality standpoint, what would these figures have become.

Our monthly release is out. The December release includes some useful features and enhancements, one of which can drive some extra pocket change through your spreadsheet(s).

• JSONP support
• Justified text alignment in cells
• Hyperlink enhancements: Internal links to cells/sheets in the same book
• Advertise with Image URL
• Ability to specify column width/row height

To see the complete list and details of the new features, enhancements and bug fixes, head over to our Change Log or better yet, sign in or sign up and give it a try.

As with any updates or releases, we’d love to hear your feedback. If you have encountered any issues, pesky bugs or questions with this month’s release or with our service in general, please send an email to us at cs@editgrid.com or report them on our support forums.

Hope everyone found these and previous monthly features and enhancement in 2007 useful. That’s all for releases in 2007, but we’ve already begun working on things for 2008.

Have fun with it and look for more EditGrid goodies in 2008!

December 2007 Release (rev 12629)

The most notable new features in this release are:

• JSONP support
• Justified text alignment in cells
• Hyperlink enhancements - Along with adding external links in cells, now there is a dialog where you can specify to add a web link, email link and an internal link. You can use the internal link to link to another cell/sheet in the same book.
• Advertise on your spreadsheet with Image URL - if your spreadsheet is highly popular, such as this one, you can now place banner ad on your spreadsheet to monetize your content.

Enhancements:

• Ability to specify column width/row height

And some major bug fixes:

• Eliminated formula bar from flashing with multiple cell selection (#5157)
• Ability to copy-and-paste formula to a range of cells (#6433)
• Inputting Chinese/Japanese character will not disconnect link in a linked cell (#7093)
• Cursor is visible while editing cell comment in Firefox (#7373)
• Ctrl+` (Toggle formula mode) works with JP IME (#7426)
• Value will not be applied to another sheet when switching sheets in Edit Mode (#7430)
• Word wrap button on toolbar toggles (#7438)
• Arrow key correctly triggers cursor movement on Mac Safari (#7455)
• Spreadsheet and cell last modified record not updated for changes published from Excel to EditGrid (#7533)
• Remote data updates cell number in dialog box automatically based on grid location (#7542)
• Word wrapping a cell and extending row height will not lead to permanently dangling edit mode (#7543)
• Exit from multiple selection using keyboard arrow keys is compliant with Excel (#7566)
• Share-to-Email now supports many forms of multiple addresses input, including comma, space, semicolon separated, and also “NAME ” form of addresses too (#7287)

Asia Pacific ICT Awards (APICTA) 2007 was held last week in Singapore. The annual event provides product benchmarking opportunities to innovators and entrepreneurs as well as to stimulate innovation and creativity in the region. EditGrid was among a number of companies to represent Hong Kong at the event.

EditGrid did not come away empty handed and was awarded the Merit Award in the Tools and Infrastructure category.

Update: A complete list of winners has been made available on the APICTA 2007 website.

Singapore Entrepreneur blog did an interview with CEO P.K. Chan during the conference, you can head over and have a look to learn more about EditGrid, online office trends and advice for the would-be entrepreneurs.