Squarespace is the Apple of Blogging
Monday, November 9, 2009 at 09:13PM 
Squarespace isn't for "Bloggers"
The same way Garage Band, iMovie, or iPhoto gives novice creators the ability to edit and build various projects, Squarespace gives experienced and new bloggers the chance to create blogs that are visually appealing with minimal knowledge of blogging. With something like Wordpress, there is no way around knowing some CSS. Something as simple as changing the width of your columns or moving a header requires tweaks that few new bloggers will understand how to make. Squarespace makes structural customization as WYSIWYG as it can be while also allowing for html/css edits if desired.
Squarespace comes with a Premium
My Squarespace account runs me $20 a month. Based on some simple calculations it appears that Squarespace has about a 25% premium compared to other paid formats for similar features. Guess who else has a premium versus their competition? That's right Apple. Like Apple customers, Squarespace fans gladly pay the premium because it is the price they pay to avoid headaches.
Squarespace has an aura of Creativity
Default blog formats in Squarespace are are more creative than that of Wordpress or Typepad, and the flexibility to expand on those visually appealing designs is relatively easier. Like Windows, Wordpress works hard to build creativity into its products, but the nature of the company doesn't mirror that. Look at the blog to the right. It's owned by Tyler Thompson, Creative Director at Squarespace. Know what the Creative Director's blog at Wordpress looks like? Me neither because such a position doesn't exist. Squarespace has a completely unquantifiable feeling of creativity to it and as such is drawing in a lot of the same folks that flock to likes of Tumblr or Posterous. (side note: read the footer on the bottom of Tyler's blog. It's absolutely hysterical)
Squarespace users like to talk about Squarespace
Despite what Microsoft TV ads may have you believe, people don't walk around telling you they use a PC. Similarly, not many Wordpress bloggers talk about that particular platform. It's common. It's well known. We humans like to be unique and thus explaining to someone that we use a tool that 40% of our peers use isn't something you'll see a lot of. Squarespacers on the other hand, like Apple fans, are ones that (currently) are in the minority. Of all the fellow Squarespace users I've come across, they all speak frequently about the platform and evangelize it those searching for a change.
I know I know...
"Wordpress has better SEO"
"Wordpress has better user support forums"
"Wordpress can be customized more (if you know what you're doing)"
But I don't really care. I blog for no other reason than to have fun. Much like an Apple product, I don't need an open source kitchen sink of a product that can do EVERYTHING, I need something that will perform a specific function for me and do it well. Squarespace accomplishes that in flying colors and that is why I have dedicated this blog post to sharing my positive opinion of them
I'm far from being a savvy blogger so I invite you to contradict anything I've said above.
squarespace, wordpress in blogging
Reader Comments (13)
You hit the nail on the head. These are the reasons that I chose SquareSpace over Wordpress.
I'll go along with just about everything you said, except for two points.
1- There are custom themes that allow you to easily adjust column width, # of columns, etc. (Thesis theme comes to mind)
2- People DO talk about Wordpress, a lot.
There's no creative director position at Wordpress because they don't need it- the community handles the design needs for those who can't create their own. Their CEO's blog shows Wordpress can be just as creative. www.ma.tt.com
Just my thoughts. I've never used SquareSpace, but I'm a content Wordpress user. If that makes me a dull pc, well, so be it.
Brandon,
Didn't know about the width adjustment feature. I knew you could change the size of the entire window but not of the individual columns and space between those columns like you can in SS.
I don't want to rule out the fact that people talk about Wordpress. I guess my point was that a higher ratio of users talk about SS vs. WP.
Thanks for the comments. I'm trying to learn from this post so I'm glad you stopped by to share your thoughts.
(I own a PC too)
I just finished moving my blog from Blogger to Wordpress, with a brief free two-week trial at Squarespace. I definitely agree with your characterization of Squarespace as an Apple-esque product. Moveable Type probably becomes Linux in this analogy. Both Blogger and Wordpress can play the role of Windows, but I think that Blogger is a "Kylie and her slideshow" style of platform and Wordpress is the "John Hodgman businessman" type.
Make no mistake, the default designs for Wordpress are sinfully ugly. The free WP templates scattered about the interwebs are as hit-and-miss as free true-type fonts. The main alphabet will be OK, but the glyphs are often corrupted. But if you're going to spend money on it, you might spend a couple hundred hiring a designer to trick out WP for you so you'll have a smooth looking and fully featured blog.
I'm too cheap for that.
Heh, I tihnk a lot of it is just who you surround yourself with. I never even heard of SS until @crosberg clued me in on it a couple months back.
I haven't worked with Thesis a lot, but that's one of the few things I remembered was being able to mess with columns and such. You can also select which pages get which template- kind of nice if you want some different layouts for different pages.
That's about as in-depth with design as I can get :)
Oh, I forgot about Drupal, which I'll say is the Ubuntu of the group.
I've used Wordpress on my own site and on several client sites (using Thesis Theme) - I find that it is EXTREMELY customizable, if you know what you're doing. But, with that being said, I have several friends who swear by Squarespace, especially from an "ease of use" standpoint. Thanks for the thoughts - I definitely want to jump into Squarespace and give it a whirl.
SEO. SEO. SEO.
I know you don't care about that. But I have to. So I'm destined to stay with WP until a better platform comes along.
Stuart,
Could you explain what you mean by "SEO. SEO.", specifically. Go ahead and mail me at a AT squarespace.com directly.
We have had nothing but a completely spectacular experience with SEO for our user's sites (and our own, on Squarespace of course). Just point out exactly what you feel is missing -- we've spent years on including everything that seems to actually matter.
We're going to be augmenting our front site with some key points on things we target and some case studies from real users to dispel this ridiculous myth. I can't believe it still persists to this day.
Thanks!
A
Casalena,
As the owner of this blog, first of all thanks for checking in. Second, I agree with you regarding SEO. I don't have any issues with my page being found via Google. I believe you guys have just as much of a shot in regards to SEO as does Wordpress or Typepad.
Len
I'm a recent convert to Squarespace and feel strongly about its capabilities and potential. I think your spot on with your Mac v. PC analogy. As someone who has traversed good ol' HTML, Joomla!, and Wordpress, I think that Squarespace is the bees' knees. Found it two months ago and I'm running my site and three client sites on its unique platform. Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but no other solution is either. There are also particular websites that I believe would be a poor fit for Squarespace, but I think that's Squarespace's strength - they know who they are trying to appeal to and they've crafted a perfect message, service, and product.
They have a very "Apple-y" feel as well; you can see the great amount of effort put into ease-of-use, user interface design, and overall graphic appeal. It's a sexy product/service that backs it up with a great user experience as well as continuous improvements and growth on a solid foundation. I also find it's more "client-proof" than Joomla! or Wordpress.
I <3 Squarespace
I did notice that a lot of the blogs I visit nowadays are on Squarespace. And since I'm not very big on blogging platforms, I wasn't able to come across any info about it until now. Squarespace sounds like it has a lot of potential to go up against more popular platforms.
do you have an idea on how to migrate a blog from squarespace to wordpress?