

Crunchbase 2.0 - moritzplassnig
http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/22/meet-the-new-crunchbase/

======
dchuk
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.

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BorisMelnik
"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
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.

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tbolse
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
The design appears to be inspired by LinkedIn profiles. Make of that what you
will.

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jph
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.)

------
asaddhamani
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
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.

~~~
minimaxir
CrunchBase was made Creative Commons for non-commercial use.

[http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/12/crunchbase-new-terms-of-
ser...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/12/crunchbase-new-terms-of-service/)

------
adeptima
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.

------
torbit
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)

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gagaga
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.

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sixQuarks
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?

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mattlutze
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.

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erichurkman
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.

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pdq
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
slide with your finger, but I guess they expect you to know that.

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wololo_
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 ?)

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bpm140
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.

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torbit
"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.

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dk8996
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.

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Brajeshwar
"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?

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

~~~
minimaxir
Apparently, the API will be revamped soon.

~~~
cpayne624
Hope so. My first attempt was a complete waste of time.

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

