Monday
Feb222010
E. ReitmanSquarespace At SXSW
We're hard at work finalizing our SXSW plans in Austin and hope to share details with you guys soon.
In the meantime, we wanted to get the word out about a rockin meetup we're throwing with our friends at cnet's Buzz Out Loud podcast! There will be drinks, food, and all of your favorite hosts from BOL, including Tom Merritt, Jason Howell, Molly Wood, and some other surprise guests. Of course, the Squarespace gang will be there to celebrate as well.
Here are the details:
Saturday, March 13, 2010, 5-8pm
Malverde
400 B W. 2nd Street
Austin, TX
512-705-0666
If you're down in Austin, we'd love to see you! RSVP here: http://buzzoutloudsxsw.eventbrite.com
Reader Comments (21)
That party sounds great! Wish I could make it. Will the details include any potential new upgrades in Squarespace features?
Whilst the updates forthcoming on this blog are great from a point of view of what SquareSpace is being used for, and the 'buzz' around it - what about new features? The Development of the platform? Future expectations of the system?
We've been waiting for some time now for v6 - and I for one don't want to know what parties you're attending - I want to know how work is progressing torward the new version.
This is great guys - the BoL/Squarespace match is ideal.
SS, I just learned of a feature you do not have and frankly it was the first time I've ever scratched my head as a result of your choices. There SHOULD BE an option in Journal Config that reads "MEMBER COMMENTS MUST BE APPROVED." How can it be SS does not have this option. In today's day and age when peeps can so easily use fake name and set up email addresses at-will, how can SS think an admin such as myself would not want to protect a site from messages that otherwise would be deleted. You guys have to fix this. Is there anything in the near future resembling a function I've just mentioned?
I have to agree with Josh B. That SQ is rockin' it with their peers is cool and good for us users to know. But there's really no need "go Apple" on us and keep every detail of the dailiness under wraps. Through a feature bone every now and then!
Seconding the above posts. Would really like to hear about forthcoming features / roadmap rather than photos of the new office or Squarespace PR activities...
Have a great time at SXSW, but please do provide some insight into future features of Squarespace. It's a great service, but it has been static for a long time.
With one week to go until SXSW, what do you think Squarespace will unveil, if anything?
what makes you think they'll be unveiling anything?
Almost ready to drift SquareSpace completely. I've already shut down three SS blogs. It remains a complete mystery why they continually fail to develop a robust ecosystem around their very capable technology platform. Templates are the low hanging fruit, but are an utter disappointment w/r/t SS. I'm sorry to wonder aloud, but the most likely cause is a failure of leadership. The sad part, I love SS enuf to pay more if they'd only do more. WordPress is not as friendly, but is certainly more robust. I have a business to run and SS is not living up it's hype. Please convince me to stay SS!!!
For once I have to agree with the naysayers. I'm a huge fan of Squarespace and I recommend them anytime I get the chance, but this whole secrecy thing is getting annoying. It's been quite a while since we've received any serious updates. I'm willing to pay the extra cost for SS because of the simplicity, style and reliability, but I think we deserve more information on its future.
I don't mean to sound like a whiner. I, like many others, are looking for actual information, not speculation. On a side note, I do hope everyone has an awesome time at SXSW!
i'm not too concerned about their future, from a business/economic standpoint. they just got a big shiny new office. they are the kings of podcast and web event sponsorship. obv growing. i think it probably looks/feels different to those of use who've been using it for a long time. for someone who just got on board they are probably pretty blown away and having a blast dragging sliders all around. but for those of use who've been around a while, waiting for enhancements, we've developed that not-so-fresh feeling. :P
Very interesting. I thought for sure that Squarespace would throw the community a tidbit this past weekend.
I'm taking a list of Squarespace suggestions for improvement over at my blog. Feel free to come visit and leave your thoughts: Squarespace vs. the World - Big Picture Web
For a company that cut its teeth on developing a leading edge communications platform, it is just incomprehensible to me the utter and comprehensive lack of consistent communications with their current, paying customer base — those directly responsible for Squarespace's initial success.
I'm not even sure if the leadership knows who its customer base is that will grow it into the future. CSS jockies? Tech world bloggers? I certainly have no sense that they are presenting new and improved solutions for someone like myself -- a small to mid size business owner with specific design and technical problems/needs to solve -- not just blogging but how to use the website building tools to create a total online solution for my business.
It feels, as of late, that the company is jockeying itself into position for a buyout; could be totally wrong but what else would explain a lifetime (internet years) of silence and ignoring of their customer base.
I say the above having been a long time and enthusiastic Squarespace use (and still am)r, but for the first time I'm really considering finding an alternative solution, where another up and coming company communicates with and pays attention to its paying customers' needs and problems, and delivers value as defined by customer need, not just by their own internal satisfaction or having achieved come technical feat. I still am enthusiastically in Squarespacer's corner and hope they can deliver soon, and adjust the leadership and customer communications for future releases.
Hi Guys,
Just wanted to drop a note and let you all know that I am reading these comments, and while I don't always respond directly into a conversation, every piece of data I read shapes the way we think about the future. I didn't respond initially because the post topic here was the SXSW notification, but I appreciate the reminders that we should be more open. A few quick points:
1) Communication -- I'm working with Tyler as I write this on a balanced way to present our roadmap. We're thinking of augmenting the service blog with something new that will give an active status update on certain projects. The team (and my time) is currently divided between some short term initiatives and a very, very big long term project that I hope to be as big as V5 was (for those who remember that release). There's a delicate balance between revealing your roadmap, making promises, and taking the time to deliver on execution that we're still getting right. We have absolutely been a bit too quiet. I hear you all, agree, and will work to change that. In the interim, I'm working on a post that will serve as a roundup.
2) Economic concerns -- Squarespace has been a profitable company for 7 years and is purely bootstrapped. This is nearly unheard of in our space, and I'm incredibly proud of this. We are not considering selling the business, and I remain committed to the overall goal of making the web's premier publishing platform. As of this writing, we have over 25 employees (most of which are in NYC). We aren't going anywhere, and this speculation is unfounded.
I'm going to get together a roadmap post that will give everyone a better idea of how we see the coming year. Thanks again for caring enough to post and share your thoughts. I'm going to try and improve how we handle this.
A. Casalena:
Many thanks for the followup post.
Honest, clear communications goes a long way (in my book) towards boosting continued confidence in your product and team. I look forward to hearing about and experiencing the super new platform improvements the SS team has developed, and hopefully we'll see the fruits of your team's efforts sooner than later.
Cheers,
M
Anthony,
There are a lot of us out there, who do not post or actively get involved in the conversation. However I can assure you that we're all waiting for what Squarespace will offer in the future. As Josh Braaten wrote in his blog Squarespace in terms of the offer sits between the full blown CMS (supported by addon communities) and a blog platform. Hence there a lot of users & marketing / designer agencies (such as myself) that are constantly tossing up whether put their faith into Squarespace & hope that future roadmap will suit their needs or make the investment into the likes of Wordpress, which are not as polished and userfriendly, but thanks to their communities tick all the boxes.
I'd love to see a structured process put in place, whereby SQ community can highlight new features & vote on them. Perhaps a new section to the forum? I was looking for updates on the roadmap / upcoming releases and it's all over the forum with most being outdated.
Also, I think there is a huge opportunity for SQ to leverage web designers / digital agencies and anyone who can provide a SQ customisation / design service. A lot of us have built our businesses on top of SQ offer & it would be great for SQ to provide a solid support channel for us, not just an existing discount. Some things that I would like to see:
- The 'learn more' link on 'Account Center' page is not working. Please provide more info on how exactly multiple billing accounts aggregation works
- Ability to provide 'user' access only to my clients. Ability to turn off some of the design features (i.e. Custome CSS or other advanced customisations). Also, ability to hide 'Billing & support' & 'Squarespace mentions' within the 'Website management' panel. If I have assumed the billing responsibility for my clients, then surely I can be responsbile for all the communication & service. Please have a think about it.
- Sandbox account, to try out new hacks and features to developers
- More of customisation videos, showing techniques on how to accomplish different layouts from the SQ team. A few that have been released helped tremendously.
Regards,
Val
Hi Anthony -
Wanted to give you my view which will hopefully help while you're revising your comms strategy towards customers.
When you run a small company with an active community and you're close to your customers, being silent for extended periods gives the impression you're sitting back and doing nothing but carrying out maintenance and pocketing the monthly fees. I'm sure you're not doing this, but that's how it ends up feeling to the users.
This is a problem with any customer base, but especially for Squarespace's as (I'd wager) it's mostly made of design-savvy people who go nuts for the Next Best Thing, or at least want to know when it's coming and how it will look. I bet these are the sort of people who have rumors sites updates pushed to their mobiles (I put my hand up!).
Other companies address this need by communicating regularly with customers and allowing users a say in what comes up. For example, I've been a customer of Dreamhost for six years. They send out a monthly newsletter - without fail - that lists the new features they've implemented (however small), hardware upgrades and, sometimes, features they've removed.
They also allow users to suggest new features by voting through their web panel. This is a fantastic idea: they get user feedback to build a system everyone wants, and get all the PR benefits of asking for it.
I'd love to see Squarespace do something similar (newsletter with updates / suggestion system). If you can't update a blog at least once every few days, I would drop it.
thanks for the blog it helps me to make my custom essays
Any updates regarding SquareSpace? I'm sure with all this marketing buzz there's something going on. Are there new features that you are working on?
Duncan Samuel
Scheduling System
Seconding the above posts. Would really like to hear about forthcoming features / roadmap rather than photos of the new office or Squarespace PR activities...
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