An Introduction to Squarespace V6

Over the next few weeks, Squarespace will begin inviting early testers to experience the next version of the Squarespace platform, Version 6. This project is the culmination of eight years of learning about user interface, content management, scalability, front-end engineering, and, most importantly, the ambitions and needs of our customers.  

Squarespace V6 is a reinvention of many core Squarespace concepts that will become the foundation for our company over the years to come.  It allows the extremely talented folks who work on Squarespace to create the sorts of sites they've always dreamed of creating on Squarespace.  It incorporates a totally redesigned consumer editing experience, backend site manager, and template system.

What does this mean for consumers?

For consumers who are just interested in editing content with no coding, Squarespace V6 will be much easier to use versus the current experience.  Sophisticated gallery and portfolio templates, better support for larger and more complex sites, robust community features, and simplified, yet powerful, administrative and content management functions are all included.

Images speak much louder than words — so we’ll be posting captures of our interface over the coming months to give you a tour of the new system.

What does this mean for developers?

Behind the scenes, Squarespace’s core has been rewritten so our staff developers – now with full control over HTML and the use of greatly expanded widget functionality and types -- can deliver the templates which will power tomorrow’s web. While our initial release will focus on technologies for consumers, our new template SDK will be released later this year, after we perfect the underlying technologies and methods.  

Developers will be able to create sophisticated sites with many display options, have full control over HTML and scripts, all while having full access to Squarespace's widget and data frameworks.  Squarespace V6 will allow for very custom sites that remain highly usable for end users.

When will Squarespace V6 be released?

Beta testing will begin in the coming weeks with a small pool of testers, which we will expand as the summer progresses. Like all Squarespace releases, we reserve the right to delay the release until we think it is right. We’d like to have it done yesterday, but creating something of quality takes time. With our talented and expanding team, we are able to deliver to you products of a level that Squarespace hasn’t been able to previously achieve. This is a big one for us, and we appreciate your patience.

What if I’m an existing Squarespace customer?

You are first and foremost in our minds. We guarantee three things:

1. Your publishing workflow, design, and content will be uninterrupted while Squarespace V6 is released. 
2. This is not a forced upgrade — you will be able to test Squarespace V6 without switching over to it by moving your content to the new platform in a structured way while continuing to run your current site as is. 
3. If you are a current customer, you will receive preferred pricing when V6 is released.  We are making it a priority to ensure user content is easily portable to V6.

Can I see it?

Yes.  Below are some shots of some new templates and the new manager interface. We obviously can't give everything away right now, but stay tuned and we'll dive into some of what's to come.

How will I be notified when testing begins?

Simply fill out this form and you'll be added to our beta invite list.

your name *

Email Address *

Squarespace account name (if you have one)

Close

Squarespace At SXSW Interactive 2011

The Squarespace team is gearing up for an exciting week in Austin, TX, for the SXSW Interactive Festival (March 11 - March 15th). We're looking forward to connecting with friends and customers, new and old. 

Here's what you should know:

FREE FOOD

Come and visit us at the Squarespace Food Truck! We've teamed up with four of the hottest local street food vendors to bring you some tasty deliciousness each day of SXSWi. We'll be parked over at 5th & Neches (one short block from the convention center), and will be serving from 11am on March 11, 12, 13 and 14th.

March 11 - Man Bites Dog 

• PHILLY DOG - Beef dog with grilled onions and Cheese Whiz
• BEER BRAT - Beer Bratwurst with spicy mustard and kraut
• BOTTLE ROCKET - Beef hot link with sriracha mayo and jalapeno relish

March 12 - Gordough's 

• FLYING PIG - Bacon with Maple Syrup Icing
• BLACK OUT - Brownie Batter, Fudge Icing & Chocolate Covered Brownie Bits
• BOSS HOG - Potato Salad, Chopped BBQ, with Honey BBQ Sauce

March 13 - Franklin BBQ 

• PULLED PORK - Juicy pulled pork, straight of the bone, with creamy vinegar slaw, pickles, onions and Franklin's own Pork Vinegar sauce.
• TIPSY TEXAN - Natural angus, chopped and sauced with Franklins espresso barbecue sauce. Topped with pickles, onions, and course ground sausage.

March 14 - East Side King 

• PORK BUNS - twice cooked pork belly, cucumber kimchee, steam buns
• CHICKEN KARAAGE BUN - with Ginger Garlic Rice

Stay up to date: Use #SQFT on Twitter and check-in on Foursquare, Gowalla, or Facebook Places when you come by.

APPLE GIVEAWAYS

After you've had some grub, take a photo in our Smilebooth to enter for a chance to win some incredible prizes: 2 MacBook Airs, 4 iPads and 10 Apple TVs. Check back after SXSW to see if you're in a winning photo.

NYC STARTUP MEETUP

On March 13th, from 11am to 6pm, we're teaming up with a great group of NYC startups for demos, drinks, and celebrate the great innovation coming out of New York City. Join us and RSVP here.

EXCLUSIVE SQUARESPACE SXSW SHIRTS

As a special way to say thanks to all of our existing customers, we've designed a set of original SXSW 2011 shirts, and we're giving them away! Visit the Squarespace food truck, check in with our team, and show them your Squarespace site. They will then hook you up with a free Squarespace t-shirt!

STAY IN TOUCH

+ Visit our official SXSW site: sxsw.squarespace.com

+ RSVP on our Facebook event page.

+ Be sure to follow Squarespace team members on Twitter to keep up with where we are: 

• Founder & CEO, Anthony Casalena @acasalena
• Creative Director, Tyler Thompson @tyler_thompson
• CMO, Deborah Uri @urimarcucci
• SVP, Operations & Business Development, Jesse Hertzberg @jessehertzberg
• Marketing Director, Erica Reitman @effedparkslope
• Lead User Interface Developer, Josh Kill @joshkill
• User Interface Designer, Teddy Zacchini @myfavoritething
• Engagement Leader, Mark Burstiner @markb

And, of course, @squarespace.

See you in Austin!

This Week in Startups

Anthony Casalena, founder of Squarespace, was recently interviewed on This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis. Enjoy.

Help Kill The Spill

BP's disastrous oil spill has been and still is wreaking havoc in the Gulf of Mexico. We might not be able to sit down with BP and work out a solution, but we can do our part to help clean up their mess. The enormous oil spill is leaving hundreds of animals completely coated in oil, jeopardizing their lives, and even the very existence of some 400 species.

As of 6/14/10, The Daily Green reports that over 127,000 barrels have covered an area over 130 miles long and 70 miles wide. This space includes an average of 25 million birds that frequent the gulf, not including the multitude of species of marine life affected by this spill.

We've teamed up with with three wonderful companies, Metalab, Campaign Monitor, and Woo!Themes to raise money to help clean the animals who have been affected by the spill. Every penny will be donated to the National Wildlife Federation and we four companies will be matching donations up to $35,000. 

If you can't contribute, you can still help by spreading the word. Follow @killspillorg and tweet:

We can clean up BP's mess. Help clean the animals affected by their spill. Donations matched to 35k. @killspillorg http://killspill.org

These animals aren't going to clean themselves. We need to do something to help.

M!

Yéle Haiti

The tragedy of the past week left us, like so many around the world, speechless. While the full impact of the quake was slowly becoming clear, we sat here wishing there was more we could do to help.

Every once in a while opportunity drops right in your lap.

On Wednesday, January 13th, we happened to run across a particularly high-traffic site that had just been created. It didn't take long for us to realize who it was. "Yéle Haiti? Isn't that Wyclef's relief organization that we just saw on CNN?" Within minutes we had emailed the link around to the entire office and verified that this was the real deal.

We were hosting an organization that was on the ground, making an immediate impact towards recovery. We immediately reached out to the Yéle Haiti folks to see if there was anything we could do. 

Apparently, on the first day of the earthquake, their previous web host had crashed under the strain of traffic brought on by people around the world looking to learn more and make a difference. The Yéle Haiti team looked to move to a platform that could handle this increased load and decided on Squarespace. They quickly redirected yele.org and our cloud infrastructure began immediately serving more than 10,000 uniques to it every hour. With the immediate traffic issues solved, Senior Designer Krystyn Heide jumped in to work with Yéle Haiti team on fine-tuning the design.

Previously, their site was static and difficult to update. As Yéle Haiti's mission is now shifting from long-term projects to immediate earthquake relief, the flexibility of Squarespace is critical in allowing multiple staffers to quickly edit content, whether in front of a computer or in the field via email or our iPhone app.

We are so excited to be able to help and sincerely ask that you do the same. Watch Yéle's live press conference from yesterday to hear more about their organization's recent efforts.  If you would like to make a tax deductible donation, you can either text "YELE" to 501501 on your cell phone (a $5 donation will be charged to your next cell phone bill), or donate online.

Our hearts go out to everyone involved.