11 Squarespace Vs. the World: The Best Blogging Platform Quest Continues
Choosing the best blogging platform is a critical first step for new bloggers. It's important to choose a tool that matches your goals and your abilities. For many (including Big Picture Web), Squarespace is an excellent publishing choice because it provides a comprehensive, best-practice blogging platform that's easy to use right out of the box. But as the middle weight content management system (CMS) class continues to grow, will Squarespace see its success continue or will some missed opportunities and some fierce new competition see a new industry sweetheart emerge?
First off, what do I mean by "middle weight" CMS? I'm defining this class loosely as a tier of blogging platforms that is between full-on CMS solutions like Wordpress and templated CMS solutions like Ning and these other simple CMS. Squarespace is a mid-weight favorite because there are no extra modules to download or configure and yet it's easy to create a customized, beautiful site in the eyes of your visitors, search engines and social media networks.
Big Picture Web has been powered by Squarespace for several months now. And while my review of Squarespace has been largely positive, I will acknowledge that nothing is ever perfect. For example, Squarespace's blog commenting system sorely lacks any reply or email notification capabilities that would enable visitors to engage more fully with the Big Picture Web community, key functionality that's critical to the blog's "stickiness" factor. (Disclaimer: I'm in no way connected to Squarespace other than being a mostly happy customer of theirs.)
While Squarespace has been good about releasing smaller updates to fix obvious flaws (e.g., SEO-friendly 301 redirects came out back in December), their ravenous community is beginning to point out the platform's faults and cry out for the next major upgrade. Nearly all of the 12 comments on Squarespace's most recent blog post involve some sort of speculation and/or dismay about the blogging platform's next big step forward. And Squarespace's response? Nothing. Not a single employee comment on their blog in response to the conversation. And in a day and age where ignoring your community can be a death knell for any company, does this mean the mid-weight CMS market may just be ripe for the picking?
If they're not careful, Squarespace could see a dip in sales or even worse, a mass exodus of its core fan base. Where would they go? Tech giant Google recently announced a major upgrade to Blogger's design interface (some of it even oddly resembles Squarespace's interface). I'm sure Google would gladly take on any Squarespace defectors. And if that weren't enough, anticipation of Drupal Gardens continues to mount as its beta efforts gain steam. I have to imagine Gardens' free custom domain package will somehow cut into Squarespace's market. Bottom, line, blog platform creators would be wise to realize that the competition for this market is about to get a lot more fierce.
Whether its Squarespace vs. Drupal Gardens or Squarespace vs. Blogger, the best blogging platform will be the one that enables bloggers to grow their blogs easily and share the most with their communities. That said, what do you think is lacking the most from blogging platforms today? What new features would make you try Drupal Gardens or Google's Blogger? If you're a Squarespacer, what features would compel you to switch? Or should everyone just learn how to use Wordpress? Leave a comment below to help us create a list of important missing blog platform features for blog platform creators that are willing to listen.
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Reader Comments (11)
Thanks for this post - I've also been a happy squarespace customer for ages. However, I recently dipped a toe back into Wordpress/ Buddypress and I have to confess finally thinking to myself - ah, now I'm tempted. I realised I hadn't really been keeping on top of developments with Drupal or Blogger either.
I'm still holding out for the next version of Squarespace, but they're really going to have to pull some rabbits out of their hats to justify all the secrecy!
Thanks for your comments, Ally. I also am very hopeful that Squarespace will come through with a big update (and perhaps engage their community a few times along the way!). There's just way too much competition in the blogging platform marketplace to not be talking to your customers and consistently improving your product.
Hey Josh --
Thanks for an incredibly well written post. I've responded to the comments on that thread -- and completely agree with your sentiments regarding our communication. See my response there:
http://blog.squarespace.com/blog/2010/2/22/squarespace-at-sxsw.html#comment7767256
And am working on a roadmap post that will let you guys know how we see the coming 6 months. We're a very heads down, execution driven company and that sometimes means we take our eye off the ball on communication. We can (and will) improve that communication. Keep the constructive criticism coming and I'll keep reading.
Anthony,
Thanks so much for the compliment and for responding to my post and the Squarespace community in general! For my money, it's the best blogging platform out there. It's really great to hear you say that you're not going anywhere and you're working hard to make Squarespace even better. That's all I needed to hear and I'm sure the same will be true for the majority of folks that read this. Can't wait to see the roadmap post!
Josh,
One of Squarespace's downfalls is lack of community involvement not only around the web but in their own forums. I once considered Squarespace to be a trend setter when I first came across their platform 2 to 3 years ago but that sparkle is soon fading. Hold your cards close to your chest if you must Squarespace but you must understand that your dedicated users require more from you including your voice.
Great analysis, Josh. As a branding professional, I find it interesting that these CMS tools are still positioned as "blogging" solutions, because clearly, they can provide much more capability than what we think of as "blogging."
With the proper site architecture and design, it can be impossible to distinguish a site built using a blogging platform and a site that's developed from scratch. Just musing out loud here, but I wonder how much more widely some of these platforms would be adopted if they weren't referred to as blogging software.
@Grant,
I saw your post from yesterday (Dear Squarespace, I miss you). It looks like we both have the same idea! I'm glad Anthony from Squarespace showed up here and let us know that we can expect some more Squarespace communication soon.
@Devon,
Bingo! Squarespace is much more than just a simple blogging platform. I've built five sites on the platform since December, each with their own distinct goals, look and feel. Squarespace is an excellent website building tool! You don't have to have something proprietary. As long as it's friendly to the user, search engines and social networks, you're golden.
We (@acquia) are really pleased by the buzz around DrupalGardens and the reception in the community. The bribes for beta codes continue to come in my inbox!
Squarespace, WP, Ning and Blogger are all *Excellent* solutions and we certainly have learned a lot from these market leaders. Where we feel DrupalGardens takes it a step further is the flexibility of Drupal and the usability of Drupal 7.
Drupal is a CMS which runs the Whitehouse, Amnesty International and my mom's website. We've also got a massive community of 100k+ Drupal developers contributing functionality to Drupal and performing security updates. This provides us with a wealth of features to add.
The biggest differentiator though in our opinion is that there is no exit cost. You can export your entire site, the content, the settings *and* the code and run it wherever you like and customize it as required. This is unprecedented in the industry and we feel we will provide our value through support, functionality and integrated services, not through vendor lock in.
Best,
J
Jacob,
Thanks for stopping by. I agree with you that there is nothing else like what Drupal Gardens will bring to the market. I can see many people using Drupal Gardens to quickly build up a site and then export it to their own hosting packages. That way, they can benefit from the Gardens design interface without having to add another subscription fee each time they want to build a new website.
Ultimately, the best web/blogging platform might be different for each person depending on their goals, budget and time lines. It's excellent to know that both Squarespace and Drupal Gardens are working hard to meet the needs of the blogging community!
Josh,
Thanks for providing info on Squarespace. I have been trying to decide between Wordpress and Squarespace. The comments I have read on other sites about Wordpress' constant updates makes it sound high-maintenance and pissy. Since I'd rather spend my time creating new posts and site content instead of fiddling around with updates and somewhat compatible plugins, I'm in favor of using Squarespace.
I am rather concerned about loading up a new site in place of my old site. I'd like to maintain my high rankings from linking to many other sites. Although I realize that domain pointing will help, I'm worried that starting a site with a new host will have me starting back from zero again.
Maria - making sure your content continues to rank is a very important step in changing your website. You may be changing your domain entirely or perhaps only the URL structure changed (e.g., /blog/date/title instead of /blog/title).
Squarespace has you covered with their 301 redirect options, which allow you to connect your old content to your new content, ensuring that most of Google goodness comes with you as you move your site.