Christmas Comes Early For Squarespace iPad Fans

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After announcing their intentions in June, the much anticipated iPad app for Squarespace has finally arrived! Although similar to its iPhone sibling, the iPad app pacts more features thanks in part to the larger screen size.

The iPad’s extra real estate gave us much more room to breathe and allowed us to pack quite a bit more into the mobile Squarespace experience. If you’ve used Squarespace for the iPhone, you’ll feel right at home with the iPad version. […]

The post editor is now one of the most powerful iOS text editors this side of Pages.  A good portion of the web editor has made it into the iPad app.  Just like in the iPhone version, you can change editing modes (Text, Markdown, Textile, Raw HTML), but now, if you’re in Markdown, Textile, or Raw HTML, you’ll be able to bold text, italicize, mark quotations, insert photos and links, and even set an excerpt!  Plus, you’ll find a very handy pair of undo/redo buttons in the top left. (Official Squarespace Blog)

If it were not for the lack of video uploading (which the WordPress iOS app has), I’d say that Squarespace has probably produced the best app for mobile blogging on the iPad, one that allows bloggers to easily create and edit content without having to fire up the notebook.

Squarespace’s embrace of the iPad is long overdue, and thus far this makes them the fourth company to officially embrace the device (as WordPress, LiveJournal and LiveDoor from Japan have launched official apps upon the iPad).

With the iPad not available to the masses, we may see the company finally focus on creating an Android app in order to help Squarespace compete against rival platforms.

Squarespace Receiving A New CEO?

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With the new year almost upon us, it looks like Squarespace will now boast a familiar face at the top, as Dane Atkinson has announced that he is stepping down as CEO.

It is with great pride that I announce today that Anthony Casalena, our founder, will be taking over as the CEO of Squarespace moving forward.

Since starting Squarespace in his dorm room in 2003,  Anthony has always actively lead the company in its vision, strategy, design and product — and is now more than ready to provide continued leadership for its next exciting chapter.  My three years here have been deeply rewarding, going from being the second employee to a team of 45 in a rapidly growing, profitable company. This is a decision we have all worked toward and I will continue to support Anthony and the company as an advisor to the board and a close friend to the team. (Official Squarespace Blog)

Under Atkinson’s lead, Squarespace was able to raise over $38 million from investors as well launching an iPhone app that (at the time) made rival iOS blogging apps look pathetic.

The company recently changed their pricing plans to make themselves more competitive against rivals, and despite facing increased competition from freemium rivals like Blogger, Tumblr and WP.com Squarespace has done surprisingly well.

With Anthony Casalena taking over we may actually see Squarespace become much more aggressive in challenging its rivals, especially on the mobile front (specifically Android but also new devices like Windows Phone 7).

Squarespace Confirms Android App

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After posting corporate details involving their upcoming iPad app, Squarespace has confirmed that they are working on an official Android app which should please a few fans who were threatening to defect elsewhere.

I’m excited to see the autosave and media management features, but without an Android app or the ability post via mobile site, I won’t be renewing when my subscription is up. (Miriam) […]

@Miriam – Android is on the way. Just don’t have solid dates to share just yet. :) (Mark Burstiner on Official Squarespace Blog)

This news should please the millions of Android lovers who have been jealous of their iPhone friends who have been able to blog from their iOS device thanks to the official Squarespace app.

Squarespace has not indicated what extra features they will be adding to the upcoming Android app, although hopefully the company will consider supporting video uploading (which would help them compete against rivals like Posterous, Tumblr, and WordPress).

There is still no word on whether Squarespace will consider supporting other platforms (i.e. Palm, Windows Phone 7 or even Blackberry), although for now its great to see the company expand beyond iOS (a strategy which is helping WordPress dominate the mobile arena).

Squarespace To Launch iPad App, Court Facebook Places?!

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Over the weekend, Anthony Casalena (the founder of  Squarespace) published a post upon the corporate blog announcing that the long awaited iPad app would make its debut over the next few weeks.

Unfortunately after publishing the post, someone in the company placed the article behind a “password wall,” although a Google Cache reveals some rather interesting details regarding Facebook Places (not to mention a few other social location networks).

Foursquare/Gowalla/Facebook Places Integration – We’re expanding our social widgets lineup with a brand new addition over the next 2 weeks. Geolocation widgets will take your feeds from Facebook Places, Foursquare, or Gowalla and display them in typical Squarespace fashion. Fully integrated, customizable, beautiful.

iPad App – You’ve been asking for it since before the iPad came out. Well, we’re happy to say we’re almost done with it. It’s gorgeous, and we think you’re going to love it. For you road warriors, we think this’ll really help in keeping your post frequency up. Look for this within the next 3 weeks as we deal with app store approval. (Official Squarespace Blog | Google Cache)

While the founder also revealed a few other upcoming features (Autosave, redesigning photo galleries, etc.) the inclusion of social location networks is interesting, especially regarding Facebook Places.

After previously rolling out price changes, Squarespace’s embrace of more social networks could help the company create a greater appeal to the masses (although truth be told I know very few bloggers who are comfortable posting their location to the public).

As far as mobile platforms go, there is still no word on whether Squarespace will embrace Android, Blackberry (or even the new Windows Phone 7), although hopefully the company will consider a platform beyond iOS in the not so distant future.

Squarespace Quietly Launches New Price Plans

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After increasing their war chest, Squarespace (a premium blogging service) has simplified their pricing plans by reducing the number from 5 plans (which included Basic, Pro, Advance, Business and Community) to 3 (Standard, Advance and Business).

Surprisingly there is no official announcement upon their blog, despite the increase in cost and features (the latter which might appeal to bloggers seeking “VIP like” hosting for their sites). [Read more…]

Squarespace Dethrones WordPress On iPhone

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After initially exposing the world to their iPhone app, it looks like the boys and girls at Squarespace have released an update that will make WordPress fans jealous.

While the Squarespace iPhone app already allowed users to view their blog’s stats, the team decided to go one step further in order to make the iPhone app truely useful for those blogging on the go.

Comment Moderation. This has been a very long time coming, but hey, anything worth doing is worth doing well, right? Moderate existing comments, reply to comments, approve comments, mark comments as spam, and email comment authors directly from the app.

Push Notifications. Yes, this is technically part of comments, but it deserves its own bullet. New comments and/or comments awaiting moderation will now send a push notification to your device. New comments will also pop a pretty badge onto the app’s icon if you ignore the push notification. (Official Squarespace Blog)

Note: Emphasis theirs.

Other features mentioned include various improvements when editing a post, as well as the ability to (finally!) create a blog post in landscape mode. The video below displays Squarespace’s comment moderation in action, which is similar to WordPress’s iPhone app. [Read more…]

Squarespace To Blogosphere: Are You Ready For The “Next Great Leap?”

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Squarespace has just announced  that the company has just added $38 million to their war chest which they will use to hire more engineers, expand their location and help improve their (already) impressive service.

While news of the investment will probably make waves in the startup world, what’s interesting are the “secret” plans Squarespace has for their service, which might help convince a few users to defect to the dark side.

This investment — a growth stage investment on top of an already successful business — will allow us to more rapidly produce the sort of products we want to make, and focus on getting those products to market.   This investment will support our product, team, and geographical expansion initiatives. […]

Squarespace customers will be the real beneficiaries of this transaction.  We want to grow into the company that can deliver the next stage of our vision — and I wanted to ensure nothing stood in the way of that.  We are now cleared of all obstacles that stand in the way of us building our next generation platform — which will emerge over the coming months. (Official Squarespace Blog)

Note: Emphasis mine. [Read more…]

WooThemes And Squarespace Team Up To “Kill The Spill”

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With BP’s enormous oil spill threatening wildlife around as well as within the gulf of Mexico, several companies have decided to partner with each other in order to save animals smothered in oil.

In the past couple of weeks, the world has been hit by the devastating news of BP’s oil spill in the Mexican Gulf. Whilst this hasn’t affected a lot of us directly (just as a result of our geographical locations), we can all agree that this is a massive man-made disaster that needs to be fixed. […]

So we’ve teamed up with 3 amazing companies –MetaLab, Squarespace & CampaignMonitor – to assist with the restoration of wildlife in the area: Kill The Spill is a new initiative from the 3 companies and it hopes to generate funds that will be donated to the National Wildlife Foundation. (Official WooThemes Blog)

Other companies like Micrsoft’s Bing are making similar attempts to help animals affected by the spill, although none of these companies are temporarily changing their backgrounds to “BP black” like Tumblr. [Read more…]

Squarespace Courts iPad, Ponders Android App

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After flirting with the idea of an iPad app, it looks as if the boys and girls at Squarespace have finally decided to develop an official app upon Steve Jobs “greatest creation.”

As far as Android goes however, the company is still giving the standard “we’re thinking about it” reply.

iPad App: This is a big one, and we get a lot of requests for it. The app is in development right now, but we don’t have a solid date for you. Once we have something more concrete, we’ll share.

Android App: Another big one. This one isn’t quite on the roadmap just yet, but we see a lot of support for it, so we’re kicking the idea around and determining how best to get our look and feel onto this platform as we have on the iPhone. (Official Squarespace Blog) [Read more…]

Squarespace Receives Love From Outbrain

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Outbrain (a company designed to help readers find relevant and related posts upon a blog) has announced that they are now providing support for the Squarespace platform.

We’re happy to announce that we have launched widget support for the Squarespace platform. This release makes it easy for anyone using Squarespace to easily add the Outbrain widget to their blog simply by going to the Get Widget page, choosing the type of widget you’d like to add and clicking on the Squarespace button. From there, you simply add the code to your blog by following a few easy steps. (Official Outbrain Blog)

Previously Squarespace fans had to install the Outbrain script manually (not to mention half blind), a feat only a true geek would attempt.

Now Outbrain provides steps for users to install the script upon their own blogs, which should help make Squarespace more competitive against rivals (like Blogger and Typepad).

This should also present Squarespace users another opportunity to generate revenue via Outbrain’s recommendation ad widget (which is currently available only to blogs with a large amount of traffic).