Blockspring for Google Sheets (Beta) Paul Katsen Tweet

We are excited to announce that all 1000+ functions on Blockspring can now be run from Google Sheets.

You'll be able to create interactive data visualizations, run algorithms, pull data from the web, automate tweets and emails, call APIs, and more. In a nutshell, you get the full power of programming from the comfort of a spreadsheet.

To get started, install the Blockspring for Google Sheets add-on from the Chrome Store.

Example use cases

Open Data - Which Chicago hotels are hot spots for... prostitution busts?

Data Visualization - Summarize recent news.

APIs - Use FullContact to find contact info for TechCrunch writers.

Sales - Merge customer lists. Typos? No problem.



Blocks used in video: Fuzzy match datasets

Marketing - Customer segmentation/clustering in a jiffy.

Finance - When in the week do websites get the most traffic? Deseasonalize a time series.

A bit of background

Within the Blockspring community, we've seen developers collaborate across programming languages like never before. Blockspring for Google Sheets is a major step towards igniting that sort of collaboration across the technical divide - between programmers and everyone else.

It's now trivial to share a parameterized query, script, interactive visualization, or just about any other piece of code with a non-programmer. We translate that code into a language everyone understands: a spreadsheet function as easy to use as =SUM().

The results are exciting. With the add-on, we're seeing spreadsheet users do certain things faster than programmers! No joke, it's crazy.

In fact, we see this as not only a shiny tool for the community, but an easy way to scale a limited number of programmers within an organization. We've partnered with businesses to replicate the Blockspring community within their walls, and it opens up the possibility for end-user computing like never before. If your team is looking to learn more, message us.

Big thanks to Ben Greve from the Google Apps team for his brilliant product feedback and support.