by Marti Trewe in Tech News - July 24, 2012

Squarespace 6 website creation launched

While there are dozens of blogging options available, many are either ugly, or require extensive tech knowledge. Not Squarespace 6.

With over 50 new features to their website creation platform, Squarespace has announced version 6, built around their LayoutEngine, a “transformative technology empowering users to create magazine-quality layouts simply by dragging and dropping content blocks onto a page.” The new platform includes mobile-ready template designs, and already has social media integration included.

Through the new features, the company’s goal is to “make high-end web design accessible to all.” Other new features include media management, a new blogging engine, Facebook page publishing, live statistics, a new commenting system, multiple author support, and 20 new templates that are fully customized.

A shifting tech environment

“Two years ago, we saw how technologies like JavaScript and CSS3 would dramatically change the experiences people would have in the browser. With this in mind, we began conceptualizing what a modern website creation platform should look like,” remarked Anthony Casalena, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Squarespace. “Squarespace 6 is the result of that effort, it’s the most impressive product we have ever made.”

The company said in a statement, “By developing the entire architecture internally, from the underlying server platform all the way up to the interface for users to drop an image onto a page, Squarespace is able to achieve an unprecedented level of control over the experience of creating and hosting a website. This end-to-end control allows Squarespace to deliver the best website creation tools on the web, which in turn enable the most sophisticated and modern customer websites in the industry.”

The service is only free for a 14-day trial, but when it goes into pay mode, it starts at $8 per month, and comes with 24/7 support and a free custom domain. The templates are a far cry from the templates of yesteryear, and much more high-end than the traditional template from ActiveRain or Blogger.