A Web Site to Call Your Own
You don't need a doctorate in computer code to build an online home for yourself. An ability to shift Lego bricks around will do just fine.
April 5, 2004
Why, after all this time, is it still so hard for us ordinary Joes to publish something on the Internet without having a doctorate in HTML, or having to settle for a Web site that looks like the home page of a four-year-old with a Hello Kitty obsession?
This was the question -- or something like it, minus the Hello Kitty bit -- of a 21-year-old student called Anthony Casalena. Which is why he came up with Squarespace (
www.squarespace.com).
Squarespace picks up where blogging software left off. Blogging, if you've not been paying attention, is how people publish journals online, using very simple software to add updates without having to know anything about computer code or fancy formatting. Select a layout, choose a color and a name for your blog and you're off. At the last count, between 2% and 7% of America was blogging, and while a lot of them don't stick at it, the craze has matured into a serious profession for many, and a challenge of sorts to mainstream newspaper, magazine and online publishers.
But the simplicity of blogging has created its own limits. One is that the tools are simple enough for us all to use, but not flexible enough for us to do more than just blog. As Dave Winer, one of the blogosphere's gurus, put it in a recent posting: "We've reached a plateau in blogging tools. There haven't been a lot of changes in the last two or three years."
In short, blogging has whet our appetites for publishing good-looking sites that reach the right audience, but which are more permanent than daily discussions and ramblings. Which is where Mr. Casalena, who is studying computer science at the University of Maryland, came in. He felt that bloggers were looking for something more. "I want the people … to realize they can do much more, with similar simplicity," he said in a recent online interview.
Imagine a Web site you can build from the ground up, just by selecting the bits and pieces you want, putting them together like Lego bricks to assemble a site. Want a list of links? Move that bit up there. A space where folks can leave their comments? Move that bit in there. Choose a color, style and layout, and you've got a site. That's Squarespace. But, unlike most "home-page builders" you might find on Yahoo Inc. and elsewhere, the result looks and feels professional.
And that was perfect for Harry Siegel, a 25-year-old New Yorker trying with some friends to set up an online magazine. "I'd been trying to set this site up for months, using various services with no success. On my umpteenth Google search for 'blog hosts' or some such, I came across Squarespace," he writes in the online interview. "I had Squarespace up and running in less than five minutes, and designed what I think is a professional and clean site in less than a week with minimal difficulties." You can see the results of his efforts at New Partisan (
www.newpartisan.com). Sounds simple? It is. Even I managed it: Check out my new Web site (
www.loose-wire.com), built with Squarespace bricks.
It sounds simple, but a lot of thought went into Squarespace. Tinkering with the layout of a site, for example, usually involves lots of complicated code. Imagine trying to move your "links" menu box so that it appears above, rather than below, your "about my company" menu box. It gives me a headache just thinking about it. With Squarespace, you click on the menu box "module," and move it with your mouse to where you want it to be. Once again, think Lego bricks and you get the idea. Want to add a picture to your Web site? Just drag it from wherever it is on your computer into a drop box and, well, drop it.
Simple to do, however, doesn't mean simple to explain. "It's misunderstood by a lot of mainstream press, as it's on the opening edge of the 'simple publishing' trend," says Mr. Casalena. "But they consistently don't get how it differs from blogging, a market which we clearly have great appeal within, though our primary focus is broader." Part of the problem here is that what Squarespace does is so simple, it's hard to imagine that it's not already something that's readily available: "If I were to tell you that you could make a Web site and manage it as easily as you could your blog and that we have something that requires almost zero knowledge of HTML, it would be difficult for you to obtain a mental image of what we've created," Mr. Casalena says.
Now, I'm not saying that Squarespace is without its flaws. There are some bugs in the software, the terms used to describe the modules that make up your site (the Lego bits I was talking about) are a tad confusing, and publishing something to Squarespace takes a few more hops than posting to a blog. But whereas your posting on a blog is here today and gone tomorrow, Squarespace is both a journal and a more-permanent Web site, perfect for an organization or individual trying to make a more-lasting impression on the Internet. Mr. Casalena readily acknowledges the need for improvements, and says he's working to make the process faster. New Partisan's Mr. Siegel says customer support from Squarespace has been great.
This is the kind of software that the Internet has been crying out for. It's not perfect, but it goes further than anything else I've seen to narrow the gap between big, expensive Web-site design companies and simple blogging. Now, with something like Squarespace, small companies, publishers and the self-employed can build a home for themselves without losing their shirt or getting lost in HTML code. As Mr. Siegel, who set up New Partisan last month to challenge established magazines and continue the tradition of Partisan Review, a recently-defunct highbrow journal, puts it: "For people who want to look like the big boys but can't pay to keep up with them, this is a godsend. Blogging is great, but there's something to be said for editors, maintenance of standards, house style, and everything else that distinguishes a magazine from a blog."
I'm biased, of course, but I have to agree.
轻松建立自己的网站
为什么直到现在，我们这些没有HTML博士学位的普通人在互联网上发表东西依然还那么难呢？要不就只能凑合做一个看上去像迷恋Hello Kitty的四岁小孩的主页？
这曾是一位名叫安东尼?卡萨雷纳(Anthony Casalena)的21岁学生的问题－－或类似困惑（除了迷恋Hello Kitty外）。这就是他创建Squarespace的原因(
www.squarespace.com)。
Squarespace做的恰是博客(blog，或译为网络日志)软件没有做到的。博客就是人们在网上发表日志的方式，他们对电脑编程或花哨的版式一窍不通，但用非常简单的软件就能发表最新文章。你只需要为你的博客选好一个版面、颜色和名称就万事大吉了。据最新统计，在美国有2%到7%的人有博客，不过很多人并不老在上面，但这股风潮已经演变成为很多人的严肃职业，并开始对主流报纸、杂志和网络出版物构成了挑战。
不过博客的简单同时也造成了它自身的局限。局限之一，博客工具用起来简单有余，但对于稍复杂的操作而言则灵活不足。戴夫?温纳(Dave Winer)是博客界的权威人物之一，他在最近的一篇博客文章中称："博客工具陷入停滞阶段。过去两三年都没有什么太多变化。"
简而言之，博客已满足不了我们发布好看网站的胃口了，这些网站针对特定的受众，但比日常的谈论区和发贴活动更持久。这就是在马里兰大学(University of Maryland)就读计算机科学的卡萨雷纳切入之处。他觉得博客用户另外有所求。他在最近的一次网络采访中称，"我希望人们能意识到他们在同样简单条件下能做得更多。。"
想像一下，你只要选好一些你要的网站构成要素，然后像组装乐高(Lego)积木一样将这些要素组合起来，就能建立一个网站。需要一个链接列表？那就添加一块。想要一个大家可以给你留言的地方？那就再加一块。选好颜色、风格和版式，好了，你的网站建好了。这就是Squarespace。但与你可能在雅虎(Yahoo)或其他地方看到的多数"主页自建"不同，Squarespace的网站建造效果看起来感觉很职业。
这样的网站对25岁的纽约人哈里?西格尔(Harry Siegel)已经很完美了，西格尔想跟一些朋友做个网络杂志。他在网络采访中写道："几个月来我一直想建立这个网站，利用多个公司提供的服务，但都没有成功。我在Google上搜索了无数次'blog hosts'或类似关键词，最后找到了Squarespace。我在Squarespace只用了不到五分钟就注册和运行起来，然后用了不到一周时间毫不费力地就设计出了一个我认为很职业而且界面干净的网站。"你可以在New Partisan(
www.newpartisan.com)上看到他努力的结果。听起来很简单？的确是。甚至我也搞了一个：看看我用Squarespace积木建成的新网站
www.loose-wire.com。
- -
听起来是简单，但Squarespace里头有不少学问。比如，琢磨网站版式经常会涉及到大量复杂的源代码。试想移动你的"链接"菜单框使之出现在"关于本公司"菜单框的上面而不它的下面。一想到这个我就头疼。但有Squarespace，你点击菜单框"模块"，在用鼠标就可以将之移到你想要放的地方。再想想乐高积木，你就清楚了。想在网站上加张图片？那就将它从电脑上拖拉到一个图片放置框内就可以了。
不过做来容易，但解释起来就不简单了。卡萨雷纳说，"很多主流媒体都有些误解，以为它是'简易出版'潮流的尖端。不过他们始终没有明白它和博客的区别，尽管我们对博客用户很有吸引力，但我们的主要目标更加宽泛。"问题的一方面是，Squarespace所做的实在太简单，很难想像这个领域以前竟然没有人涉足："如果我这样告诉你：你能像做你的博客网站一样轻易地建一个网站并管理它，而且你不要任何HTML的知识，你将很难对我们的产品有一个概念，"卡萨雷纳说。
我现在并不是说Squarespace毫无瑕疵。这个软件还存在一些问题，它描述你建立网站的模块（也就是我所说的乐高积木块）的用语有点混淆，而且用Squarespace发表东西比博客要多费几个步骤。不过你在博客上发表的东西今天在这，明天可能就没有了，但Squarespace既是一个日志，有是一个更为永久性的网站，对那些想在互联网上有更多作为的组织或个人来说可谓完美之选。卡萨雷纳坦然承认还有改进的需要，他说他在努力使内容发布过程更快些。New Partisan的西格尔说，Squarespace的客户支持做得非常好。
这就是那种互联网一直迫切需要的软件。它并不完美，但在缩小昂贵的网站设计公司和简单博客之间的差距方面，它比我见过的任何软件都要走得更远。现在有了Squarespace这样的软件，小公司、出版商和自雇人士就能建立自己的网站，而不至于迷陷在HTML源代码中。西格尔上个月建立了New Partisan，挑战传统杂志并延续了自恃颇高但最近倒闭了的Partisan Review的传统。他说："对那些想做出点事情，但又没有资金的人来说，这简直就是天赐良机。博客很棒，但一份杂志不同于一个博客网站，杂志的编辑会有所要求，它要维持标准和风格以及代表其区别的方方面面。"
