Is the Squarespace 6 Release Right Around the Corner?
An official Squarespace 6 company website was spotted out in the wild this week, listing the pricing and features of the new platform, and proclaiming that the beta is now over and that Squarespace 6 is being readied for customers. Has the long wait finally come to an end? Is the Squarespace 6 release right around the corner?
As I was getting ready to fire up this week's post, my eye was drawn to a tweet by Squarespacer Hamish Prior from Melbourne, Australia:
@Squarespace's V6 front page (new.squarespace.com) is probably one of the most beautifully designed sites I've ever visited.
— Hamish Prior (@hamletpri) June 3, 2012
Curious, I clicked, and found what looks like what will be the Squarespace.com homepage when Squarespace 6 is released. Evidently, it looks like things are going to happen soon. If Hamish's tweet is an indication of things to come, Squarespace 6 is coming soon, and it will include some amazing new features.
What do you think? Will the new features be worth the wait or has Squarespace missed their window to really impress current and new customers with the release of Squarespace 6?
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Reader Comments (4)
Josh, I'm still figuring out if this is two steps forward and one step back or one step forward and two steps back. Right now I'm leaning towards the latter but if I'm surprised by unexpected features in the launch then it will be the former.
My key concern here is the identity of the product or the lack thereof. It doesn't feel like it is targeted at the people I know within the Squarespace community forums. These people have been asking for an evolution of Squarespace for years but instead it appears we're getting a complete reboot whereby many of the features we've grown accustomed to have been lost (but will hopefully be added back later at some future date). I realize the reason why this was done but fear it might not be any better because I'm not seeing serious and thorough systems thinking at work here.
For example, I'm seeing people asking about valid features but Squarespace is basically saying "We haven't figured out that part yet for Squarespace v6." But isn't that the whole point of rebooting, so that you can start fresh and figure out the system as a whole, before commiting to a framework that might not be sustainable to features in the future (which happened with V5).
All said and done though, V6 will most definitely resonate with a niche group of people, particularly bloggers and artists wanting portfolios. That said though, I think these people will run into similar problems that were encountered with V5, that being the lack of flexibility to adapt the system to your local needs. In this regards, I think the lack of customization for the end user, due to a lot of it being ported into the developer interface, might cause a serious backlash among existing users and even new users after they've utilized the system for a while. This, however, can be negated if Squarespace has finally achieved the ability to rapidly evolve their system. In effect, if they can make dramatic but stable iterative changes to the system on a monthly basis then I think they may finally be able to survive and grow with their community.
If anything, the question is not how much the product has evolved and grown but how has the company evolved and grown. Hopefuly we'll see a better company that can learn and adapt quickly to their users needs.
Yours is a keen assessment, Nollind. The rebuild of the platform may certainly cause some stress for V5 folks looking to make the move to 6. You're also likely correct in your assumption that some will not be satisfied when 6 launches because it's targeting portfolio sites.
Based on what I've seen and heard, I think the magic is going to come in the improved extensibility of the system and their ability to rapidly iterate the product. If the Developer TDK hits the mark, both Squarespace and the developer community may end up contributing the the evolution of the product. Who knows though... at this point it's all speculation, and I hope my optimism pays off.
"...I hope my optimism pay offs."
I hope so as well but there in lies part of the problem. When you're optimistic about something you're seeing it more than it is currently capable of being. This in turn embeds an expectation within you that may or may not live up to the reality of what is to come. This has been the history and problem with Squarespace in a nutshell.
This is why I mentioned systems thinking in my initial comment because it takes you beyond the logical next expected step and lets you bury deep down, discovering the intrinsic purpose or greater vision of what people want. This allows you to surprise them and give them something that they didn't even realize they wanted until they get it. It's at the core of what companies like Apple do so well. Again it's why I'm so often frustrated with Squarespace because my vision of what they could collectively and potentially achieve is often only partially realized. It's like they know the direction to go sometimes but they decide to only take half a step rather than a full step. Don't get me wrong, I'm naturally an optimist as well but the patterns I'm seeing are revealing a company that seems with each step to be getting farther and farther away from its core identity that I fell in love with years ago.
My site is just a portfolio with a blog.
And yes sqsp6 solves the problem or a lousy gallery and limited slideshow widget in v5.
I have now got a site that is a lot more closer to what I wanted.
BUT - yes there are many missing features and actually a lot less opportunity to tweak the site as the programmers have not adequately delineated the classes across the page pieces such that you may need to use multiple nested CSS rules to achieve the tweak on a specific element - this seems to be a bit of a short sighted approach in the initial development.
The gallery options are still significantly limited though - the ability to choose amongst different types of galleries doesnt exist. You have to effectively choose the entire template you want based on the (one and only ) gallery type it has built in and then re-tweak the look of the overall site to reverse engineer back to what you were looking for !!
sqsp 6 has been in the mill for soooo long that when i got enough functionality i just jumped. There are still quite a lot of simple bugs in both the production operation and the editor itself.
I like the idea of the platform and i really hope they get their sh!t together long enough to actually get into production and get the customers so the revenue can fund the fixes that are desperately needed !!
Am still a buyer .. but probably more to the fact I am lazy and have the patience to wait ... sort of ...