6 ms·

Crunchbase 2.0

55 points by moritzplassnig 12y ago

dk8996 12y ago
Just saw it. I like the landing page but the company page seems to be a bit off. One thing I did like in the older version is there was a table with key dates from when the company was founded, VC round, ect.. (also when key people were hired) -- a temporal progression of a company.
asaddhamani 12y ago
I liked Crunchbase 1.0 better. It was easier to browse and find new companies with. Now you can only look up companies you already know about.
- 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
  I agree. CrunchBase 1.0 was rough around the edges but I think it was more usable than this. I wonder if this isn't intentional. My understanding is that there are a number of companies that license CrunchBase data for their own paid services. From what I have seen, some of these services rely heavily if not exclusively on CrunchBase data. A more usable CrunchBase would certainly not benefit them.
  - BorisMelnik 12y ago
    also, holy ads! Just logged in and I am seeing a horizontal banner across the top and 2 huge skyscrapers on the side. wowza.
  - minimaxir 12y ago
    CrunchBase was made Creative Commons for non-commercial use. http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/12/crunchbase-new-terms-of-service/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/12/crunchbase-new-terms-of-ser...
wololo_ 12y ago
I was about to write a list of feedback, but there was so much that I don't like that I couldn't continue. My best advice is either you make the site faster, or consider using more javascript (i.e why do I need to load a whole bloat of HTML and rerun all the same javascript when I click "see more" on the funding rounds ?)
pdq 12y ago
The CSS looks pretty, except the landing page is a terrible UI. Tip: click the dots in the center of the page to see what's trending.
- torbit 12y ago
  slide with your finger, but I guess they expect you to know that.
BorisMelnik 12y ago
"If you had an account on CrunchBase previously, you will need to register again. - See more at: http://www.crunchbase.com/login#sthash.r9mOCw4r.dpuf" http://www.crunchbase.com/login#sthash.r9mOCw4r.dpuf" Not loving that. I actively maintained my Crunchbase account and now I have to re-register? Did not come here to complain, but did what to report this very odd fact.
- wise_young_man 12y ago
  I had the same feeling. I'm really surprised they didn't migrate accounts over. They clearly didn't start out with a fresh database entirely as they have a huge list of companies already. It's kind of off putting to the people who contributed data to them the first time.
bpm140 12y ago
Wondering how much of http://Crunchinator.com http://Crunchinator.com we're going to have to recode. The only people they have advance API access to were the paying customers. Hopefully it's not too much work, but then, we don't have 25 people to throw on rearchitecting for a year.
tbolse 12y ago
Hmmmm... at first I felt I have to complain, then I remind myself that new designs mostly are very controversial because humans on average don't like changes that require them to adapt to a new usability pattern. So maybe I need some time to adapt. Here is my first opinion: The new page looks a lot more fancy and modern, but the company detail pages just waste a lot of space. The older version wasn't that pretty, but it had all necessary informations on one page without much scrolling. Now I need to scroll a lot, which is a thing that I really don't like. Might be better on tablets, thou.
- minimaxir 12y ago
  The design appears to be inspired by LinkedIn profiles. Make of that what you will.
sixQuarks 12y ago
I'm sorry, but everything about this is awful. Terrible usability throughout. What if I just want to browse by industry? Where do I find that?
dchuk 12y ago
This looks like it was designed by someone new to web design...so bland and such weak use of space. The gradients and shadows are oddly used as well. This just comes off as a rough prototype put together over a weekend, not a year-in-the-making-23-person-team real product. They should really have a UI/UX expert come take a stab at a redesign of this. Hell, throw it up on Dribbble.
coldcode 12y ago
It's still the same broken public API I gave up on.
- minimaxir 12y ago
  Apparently, the API will be revamped soon.
  - cpayne624 12y ago
    Hope so. My first attempt was a complete waste of time.
torbit 12y ago
So the focal point is the search for companies, but no category search. When you type a word and try to scroll the results it automatically puts whatever I hovered over in the search bar. Why!? Implement amazon menu delay trending is now only 5 companies the slider has a fixed height, which cuts off the bottom text. dots to offer a preview what is next who is going to swipe 3 times to read the latest news each time. The landing page looks like you are trying to sell it, than let people use it. Look at angelist for inspiration https://angel.co/companies https://angel.co/companies
gagaga 12y ago
Seems like a step back from the old design? Not a great browsing experience and for company pages, there is not very much information above the fold anymore.
erichurkman 12y ago
Some of it's OK. The old company pages were busy, but required very flew clicks. Now, it seems as if everything is buried behind yet another 'More' link.
anewcolor 12y ago
the page for apple still has forstall as an employee and some guy named Warren Friss is president?
Brajeshwar 12y ago
"If you had an account on CrunchBase previously, you will need to register again." Extremely bad UX. What really prevented from using the old credentials?
jph 12y ago
I had a detailed interview with Crunchbase president Matt Kaufman a few months ago. IMHO Matt and his team are smart, focused, on-target, and have very good ideas about improving Crunchbase. Our discussion ranged from the long-term big picture to the nitty-gritty tech needs, and all of it impressed me as solid, worthwhile, and brimming with interesting opportunities. (I don't have any affiliation with Crunchbase, and I don't get anything for recommending them.)
adeptima 12y ago
Agreed with the most of previous comments. It would be really nice if Crunchbase study from AngelList Specifically Top Page and Companies https://angel.co/companies https://angel.co/companies Top page requires too many efforts. Clicking dot to find Funding rounds? Hhh ... and next I should click to get new info. It would be really nice if I can just scroll down to get the same info. How about working more on responsive design? Too many pages to scroll see the info which might be perfectly seen on PC. Hope Neo4J engine behind is for good and will active some nice API features in the future.
mattlutze 12y ago
The comments complaining about the paging circles on the front page seem to have missed the big arrows on either side. Seems to be a rather standard pager from where I'm sitting. That said, layout on the front page for said pager is still kinda odd, particularly when the browser window is short -- the pager elements roll into the footer of the page and text content is awkwardly cut off. Overall though, I appreciate the ascetic aesthetic. I'm rather aggressive with blocking ads, so perhaps the volumes of negative space on the right side of the page are normally full, but the spacing around elements in their list boxes is well balanced and makes it all quite easy to skim. I didn't use Crunchbase 1.x much and don't really have an opinion on whether this is an improvement. Judged on its own, I think there's a lot here that makes accessing and using the company and person profiles simple and straight-forward.
torbit 12y ago
"During development and planning, our web analytics showed that relatively few people used this feature, but clearly we neglected to realize how much it was used by some of our most active users." what!? how did they miss that. Why bother having analytics then.

Just saw it. I like the landing page but the company page seems to be a bit off. One thing I did like in the older version is there was a table with key dates from when the company was founded, VC round, ect.. (also when key people were hired) -- a temporal progression of a company.

asaddhamani 12y ago

I liked Crunchbase 1.0 better. It was easier to browse and find new companies with. Now you can only look up companies you already know about.

7Figures2Commas 12y ago
I agree. CrunchBase 1.0 was rough around the edges but I think it was more usable than this. I wonder if this isn't intentional. My understanding is that there are a number of companies that license CrunchBase data for their own paid services. From what I have seen, some of these services rely heavily if not exclusively on CrunchBase data. A more usable CrunchBase would certainly not benefit them.
- BorisMelnik 12y ago
  also, holy ads! Just logged in and I am seeing a horizontal banner across the top and 2 huge skyscrapers on the side. wowza.
- minimaxir 12y ago
  CrunchBase was made Creative Commons for non-commercial use. http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/12/crunchbase-new-terms-of-service/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/12/crunchbase-new-terms-of-ser...

wololo_ 12y ago

I was about to write a list of feedback, but there was so much that I don't like that I couldn't continue. My best advice is either you make the site faster, or consider using more javascript (i.e why do I need to load a whole bloat of HTML and rerun all the same javascript when I click "see more" on the funding rounds ?)

pdq 12y ago

The CSS looks pretty, except the landing page is a terrible UI. Tip: click the dots in the center of the page to see what's trending.

torbit 12y ago
slide with your finger, but I guess they expect you to know that.

BorisMelnik 12y ago

"If you had an account on CrunchBase previously, you will need to register again. - See more at: http://www.crunchbase.com/login#sthash.r9mOCw4r.dpuf" http://www.crunchbase.com/login#sthash.r9mOCw4r.dpuf" Not loving that. I actively maintained my Crunchbase account and now I have to re-register? Did not come here to complain, but did what to report this very odd fact.

wise_young_man 12y ago
I had the same feeling. I'm really surprised they didn't migrate accounts over. They clearly didn't start out with a fresh database entirely as they have a huge list of companies already. It's kind of off putting to the people who contributed data to them the first time.

bpm140 12y ago

Wondering how much of http://Crunchinator.com http://Crunchinator.com we're going to have to recode. The only people they have advance API access to were the paying customers. Hopefully it's not too much work, but then, we don't have 25 people to throw on rearchitecting for a year.

tbolse 12y ago

Hmmmm... at first I felt I have to complain, then I remind myself that new designs mostly are very controversial because humans on average don't like changes that require them to adapt to a new usability pattern. So maybe I need some time to adapt. Here is my first opinion: The new page looks a lot more fancy and modern, but the company detail pages just waste a lot of space. The older version wasn't that pretty, but it had all necessary informations on one page without much scrolling. Now I need to scroll a lot, which is a thing that I really don't like. Might be better on tablets, thou.

minimaxir 12y ago
The design appears to be inspired by LinkedIn profiles. Make of that what you will.

sixQuarks 12y ago

I'm sorry, but everything about this is awful. Terrible usability throughout. What if I just want to browse by industry? Where do I find that?

dchuk 12y ago

This looks like it was designed by someone new to web design...so bland and such weak use of space. The gradients and shadows are oddly used as well. This just comes off as a rough prototype put together over a weekend, not a year-in-the-making-23-person-team real product. They should really have a UI/UX expert come take a stab at a redesign of this. Hell, throw it up on Dribbble.

coldcode 12y ago

It's still the same broken public API I gave up on.

minimaxir 12y ago
Apparently, the API will be revamped soon.
- cpayne624 12y ago
  Hope so. My first attempt was a complete waste of time.

torbit 12y ago

So the focal point is the search for companies, but no category search. When you type a word and try to scroll the results it automatically puts whatever I hovered over in the search bar. Why!? Implement amazon menu delay trending is now only 5 companies the slider has a fixed height, which cuts off the bottom text. dots to offer a preview what is next who is going to swipe 3 times to read the latest news each time. The landing page looks like you are trying to sell it, than let people use it. Look at angelist for inspiration https://angel.co/companies https://angel.co/companies

gagaga 12y ago

Seems like a step back from the old design? Not a great browsing experience and for company pages, there is not very much information above the fold anymore.

erichurkman 12y ago

Some of it's OK. The old company pages were busy, but required very flew clicks. Now, it seems as if everything is buried behind yet another 'More' link.

anewcolor 12y ago

the page for apple still has forstall as an employee and some guy named Warren Friss is president?

Brajeshwar 12y ago

"If you had an account on CrunchBase previously, you will need to register again." Extremely bad UX. What really prevented from using the old credentials?

jph 12y ago

I had a detailed interview with Crunchbase president Matt Kaufman a few months ago. IMHO Matt and his team are smart, focused, on-target, and have very good ideas about improving Crunchbase. Our discussion ranged from the long-term big picture to the nitty-gritty tech needs, and all of it impressed me as solid, worthwhile, and brimming with interesting opportunities. (I don't have any affiliation with Crunchbase, and I don't get anything for recommending them.)

adeptima 12y ago

Agreed with the most of previous comments. It would be really nice if Crunchbase study from AngelList Specifically Top Page and Companies https://angel.co/companies https://angel.co/companies Top page requires too many efforts. Clicking dot to find Funding rounds? Hhh ... and next I should click to get new info. It would be really nice if I can just scroll down to get the same info. How about working more on responsive design? Too many pages to scroll see the info which might be perfectly seen on PC. Hope Neo4J engine behind is for good and will active some nice API features in the future.

mattlutze 12y ago

The comments complaining about the paging circles on the front page seem to have missed the big arrows on either side. Seems to be a rather standard pager from where I'm sitting. That said, layout on the front page for said pager is still kinda odd, particularly when the browser window is short -- the pager elements roll into the footer of the page and text content is awkwardly cut off. Overall though, I appreciate the ascetic aesthetic. I'm rather aggressive with blocking ads, so perhaps the volumes of negative space on the right side of the page are normally full, but the spacing around elements in their list boxes is well balanced and makes it all quite easy to skim. I didn't use Crunchbase 1.x much and don't really have an opinion on whether this is an improvement. Judged on its own, I think there's a lot here that makes accessing and using the company and person profiles simple and straight-forward.

torbit 12y ago

"During development and planning, our web analytics showed that relatively few people used this feature, but clearly we neglected to realize how much it was used by some of our most active users." what!? how did they miss that. Why bother having analytics then.