Totally Rad Websites

We've just launched a brand-new, "totally rad" site for Revision3's Totally Rad Show. There's a lot of great customization in this one to enhance user interaction — click 'Post a Comment' on the blog page to see what I mean. ;)

Here's more new Squarespace sites on the scene you might want to check out:

• Film Riot, from the Revision3 family 
• ABC News Radio is using Squarespace to unite all of their podcasts 
• Alex Albrecht, of TRS, Diggnation and Project Lore — and,
• Fox News's Clayton Morrison also relaunched his Grizzly Bear Cafe podcast site.

What are some of your favorite Squarespace sites? Leave us a link in the comments!

Squaregirl at Blogher This Friday

Blogher is right around the corner, and I’m crazy excited. The convention not only rocks, but I get to see people whose faces I miss an awful lot. A bunch of you have switched to Squarespace since the last event! I’m looking forward to hearing about your experience and how we can improve it.

If you’ll be in attendance, don’t miss the “Beautiful Blogging and Positive Posting” panel on Saturday, where I am humbled to join Kyran Pittman, Alyssa Royse, Jen, and Lucrecer Braxton to talk about the positive things we do on our blogs, and how your blog can also be about love, trust, positivity, hope, empowerment!

I’ll have limited quantities of these uber swank posters designed by our very own Tyler Thompson on hand. First come first served. More info here » www.squaregirl.com/speaking

I won’t be doing a CSS lab this time around — the chicks at Blogher like to change things up each year — but if you see me don’t hesitate to hit me up for any help or advice. :)

Calorie Free Caramel Frappuccinos

The last few months have been frantic around here, but in a good way. Like a kind of Frappuccino- sugary-caffeine-induced-frantic. You love it, you’re getting a lot done, and it tastes like a little slice of heaven. ;)

We’re in the final stages of a new Squarespace release that is so huge it almost feels like we’re launching an entirely new product. To make another Starbucks reference, it’s like when you’ve been addicted to Caramel Frappuccinos for years, and then they come out with one that is calorie free. And it tastes better. With chocolate chips even.

It’s that good.

We promise previews as we get closer to our launch date, which will be in about a month.

Thanks for being a Squarespacer! And for inspiring us to continually improve your web experience!

Catching Up With The Squarespacers

We sincerely apologize for the sparse updates around here. In all honestly, it’s not that we’ve been lazy or forgetful, we’ve just been crazy, crazy busy. Those of you who subscribe to our service blog, frequent your Dashboard, or just pay attention in general have probably noticed there’s been a whole lot going on at Squarespace.

First, our programming team has developed a gorgeous new traffic system has been in development for a long time. It’s not just a pretty interface either — you’ll find the data to be more accurate and up to date with real time calculations of unique visitors, popular pages, referrers and queries, details like browsers and operating systems, and new RSS details such as how your subscriber count has changed over time.

There’s been a ton of other improvements and new features added in the last few months with the 4.1 and 4.1.1 releases. If you haven’t had caught up on it all yet, you’ll definitely want to make time to be sure you’re using all of the tools now available to you.

You may have noticed there’s been more layouts added in recent months as well. My newest, Playlist, addresses some requests we’ve seen come up in support tickets. There’s a wider content area (and a smaller sidebar), flexible padding settings (making it easier to add your own custom banner), and unobtrusive styling/graphics that won’t compete with your own site content, images or design enhancements.

We’ve also been working with talented designers and illustrators on layouts, including the Penelope and Katie layouts from Daphne & Clio, I Am Satisfied from Job Design, and Sunakku from Wolfgang Bartelme. These layouts address customer requests for designs as customized as some of our more advanced example sites. With these layouts, you can create a highly customized, graphically enhanced site without having to employ a designer or learn CSS.

Well, that about catches us up for now. We’ve made it a New Year resolution to post here more frequently, and I personally will be sharing some “behind the scenes” action in future posts. Stay tuned!

RSS: Best Design Practices And Icons

Smashing Magazine has posted a great article on RSS, including good usability-practices for design and placement of RSS-buttons on a web site.

To implement some of the ideas presented on your own site, check out these guides:

· Adding a Widget

· Inserting an Image

· Creating a Link