A big relaunch from NYC's Squarespace: They've completely redone their Web publishing service, and we had a chance to take an extended peek at it -- it looks great.
What is it? A fully-hosted Web tool to build, design, and maintain a Web site, including stuff like blogs, message boards, photo galleries, built-in stats, built-in and custom design and layout themes, etc.
Who's it for? Squarespace says it can handle huge sites -- and already serves up pages to 15 million uniques a month. But we think Squarespace appeals mostly to small- to medium-sized businesses and bloggers, who might otherwise try to build their sites using WordPress, SixApart's TypePad or Movable Type, or open-source content management systems like Drupal.
Squarespace has grown from a one-man shop -- Anthony Casalena started the company in 2003 when he was a 20-year-old student at the University of Maryland -- to a small software company, employing seven people, including new CEO Dane Atkinson.
It also has a different P&L sheet than many Web startups: It's booking multi-million dollar annual revenues and is profitable, and has only taken one outside investment -- $20,000 from Casalena's father to get things started.