If you've been looking for an official update on Squarespace 6, look no further. Friend and Squarespace designer Jason Barone tweeted last week a link to a post on the Squarespace Developer Forum by Squarespace Founder and CEO Anthony Casalena. Since the dev forums aren't exactly seen by everyone, I thought you might like to see some of the highlights.

Squarespace Founder Anthony Casalena Speaks on Squarespace 6

In his update, Casalena goes into the progress of Squarespace 6, the ongoing beta efforts, and a response to those looking for a date when they'd close the beta and release Squarespace 6. Here are some of the highlights.

Do you have a schedule for the beta ending?

No. We will know when it is ready when we see the right level of customer responses and we are internally proud of it. [...] Squarespace 6 is not late either, it is simply still under development. - Anthony Casalena, Squarespace Founder/CEO

Should I wait for X (where X is a feature, Squarespace 6, or anything else)?

"No. Please do not. [...] For those of you following us for some time, we will always be the sort of company that attempts to release products of quality, and that naturally means things take more time for us." - Anthony Casalena

How's the beta going?

We're pleased with it so far. We've got a lot of invites out (though not as many as we hoped to have at this point), and are getting many more out shortly. - Anthony Casalena

Why is there a Squarespace 6 Beta? Why even talk about it?

The purpose of the Squarespace 6 beta is to help us test and prepare a monumental product release for public launch and get real customers into the R&D process. [...]

Squarespace 5 is an excellent platform, 6 will be even better, and we will continue to put all of our efforts into getting this right. - Anthony Casalena

How Will Customers Respond to the Squarespace 6 Update?

It's hard to say how customers will take the news that there remains no specific goal for when Squarespace 6 will be released. Personally, I think people just want to know where Squarespace is in the process. Customer experience is more about dialogue and acknowledgement than it is about a constant stream of new features.

Casalena's post will go a long way to contribute to that communication - I just wish he'd do it more often. On the topic of more frequent Squarespace 6 updates, Casalena says:

Squarespace has tens of thousands of customers. A percentage of them are waiting for Squarespace 6 [...] We will continue to publish to our blog and talk about things happening at the company -- because the topic you were looking for wasn't addressed in a particular post doesn't mean we don't care or it's off our radar, there are simply many things happening at once.

Here's where I think Casalena is a bit off. I can only imagine how much he has to be aware of as the Founder and CEO of the company, but if you look at all blog posts published on the Squarespace Blog in the last year, the most popular articles by far have been about either Squarespace 6, or new releases of Squarespace v5 features. As a scientist of web content, I put together this basic blog audit to demonstrate popularity of Squarespace's own blog by way of comments, links, and social media activty:

It looks like Squarespace 6 and new v5 features dominate what's popular on the Squarespace blog. I say give the people what they want.

What did you think about Squarespace founder and CEO Anthony Casalena's Squarespace 6 update? Are you content to wait for perfection or have you been putting of a big project(s) until Squarespace releases their next generation platform? Your thoughts are most welcome in the comments section below.