Editing The Pen Addict 16/transcript (section)

== Squarespace ==


'''Myke Hurley:''' So we do have a real topic this week. But before that, we'll talk a little bit about Squarespace. And then we're going to talk about Kickstarter projects today. Which is something we've been wanting to discuss since episode one. 16 weeks ago, 16, 17 weeks ago, which is a long time. So this episode is brought to you by Squarespace, who provides you with everything you need to create an amazing, beautiful, and totally awesome website. We're going to talk a little bit this week to you, I think, Brad. Because finally, the pen addict has successfully moved over to Squarespace. And it's there to stay. Yes. You know, as we spoke about last week. Something we don't talk about too much, actually, is Squarespace's support. They have 24-7 fanatical support who are ready to help you with your issues. And you can raise support tickets and, of course, one of you by email. It's really cool. I've had good interactions with them. They fixed an entire part of the service for Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, you know. Yeah, they pushed out a bug fix for me to fix one of the problems I was having. So that's pretty dedicated support. Not just, well, yeah, we're working on it. We're going to – that's just kind of how it is right now. They're like, oh, we see the problem. We can duplicate the problem. Give us some time to work on patching it. Then I got an email saying, hey, we just pushed the fix out. We tested out your import. We're seeing everything working right. So why don't you test it now and tell us how it's going. So that was a good experience. It took some time. But anything, you know, platform-wide, you know, they're pushing out a fix not for one person. It's going to affect other people. So I'm sure they have testing and other standards in place to be able to push a patch out. So that was much appreciated, their dedication to get that done for me. And it was very cool.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And what's your experience been so far of using Squarespace?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's been really good. I've just gone with a real basic template just to get started. I want to get everything over there, settled in, and, you know, kind of figure out how I want to design the site. And, you know, I'm not very far along in that now. But a couple things I've noticed so far.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' One, with the templates and the widgets that they call them right now, I guess they're changing the name of that in a future version. It's really simple to just manipulate the site how I want. If I want to make a change, it's, I mean, I actually can go live on, you know, looking at my, like if you went to penaddict.com right now, for me being like the, being the administrator, I'll just see that same page as you see. But then I'll have a little, some little extra buttons where I can move around things, add things, edit things right there live on that page. I can see how they're, how the design would implement right there. And then I can push that if I want. But the second thing I've seen or that I've noticed is how responsive and snappy not only my site is, but all the back-end tools are. You know, penaddict.com, it's probably because I've got it less junked up as I did on my old site, but it loads faster. It looks great on iOS devices and all the back-end tools from the commenting management, the, man, the reporting, the reporting stuff is really nice. I don't even have Google Analytics installed. I mean, the Squarespace, the Squarespace analytics is very thorough and it's really, really good. I didn't even bother with analytics, which I've done on any other site that I've put out there before. And just all the back-end pages, I mean, it's fast. Everything about Squarespace is fast and responsive and snappy. I've been real pleased with that. And the final thing, and I alluded to it a second ago, is the iOS applications are killer. I made a typo in the giveaway post earlier this week. And I wasn't, you know, I was reading the emails and I caught a couple of them saying, you know, I was going to give it, you know, I was going to announce the winner on March 31st instead of May 31st. Well, for some reason, I've done that all May long. I've been writing down March and doing weird things like that. That's not the first time that's happened to me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's what that time change will do to you, man.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, definitely. Luckily, March is almost over. But, you know, after the second person said something, I was like, oh, I need to go in there and change that. Well, I just grabbed my iPad, clicked on my Squarespace icon, went and edited the post, deleted March, typed in May, and hit send a website. And I was done. I mean, I didn't have to get my computer out or anything to edit the post. So that was one of the things I was most anxious about using. And it's come in really, really handy. So I'm very, very happy so far. And the thing is, I mean, I'm only in the beginning of my site. You know, that's, this isn't what, I don't think this is what the site's, I like the site, how it's designed right now. But it's real plain. I'm going to add some things. So I have the flexibility to do that. And it's really good. I've been real happy so far.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Cool. That's a ringing endorsement. I don't think I can say much more than that. Other than, if you want to go and start a two-week free trial, which we can offer you, so you can play around to this and get your own feel for how Squarespace works, then go to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels. Don't need any credit card to sign up. And if you do sign up, make sure you use the offer code 70decibels5 at 70-DEC-I-B-E-L-S-5 at checkout. You'll get 10% off your first order. And this will also let Squarespace know that we sent you. So there we go. Just before we do knock into our topic, I've just had a quick look on, for some reason, just in the JetPens, FountainPens category. And the vanishing point is the 10th in their most popular list. Now, I can't help but think that's something to do with us.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I say without a doubt. I mean, I can't say for a fact, but I actually watch those rankings sometimes. And, yeah, I totally, you know, I think they got the pin addict push. Unfortunately, they've been sold out for a while. But those are some pilot, just to give you a little insight without giving away too much, some pilot products are hard to restock like the high-tech C's. You know, JetPens sell out all those a lot. And they're hard to replenish in a timely fashion. They always get them. Sometimes it might be a few weeks. I think on the vanishing points, the turnaround time is a little bit quicker. So hopefully they'll get some more in soon.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They've got broad and mediums. Just no find. Okay, good. No finds. I mean, it's just funny. It's sitting there like around a bunch of, let's see, you've got like $26 pens, $23 pens. It's just below the AL Sport at $76. But it's just funny to see it sitting in that list.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. And that's a good thing for people not to, you know, totally pimp out on JetPens, which we obviously both love and I used to work for. But when I'm looking for something new, if I need some inspiration, if you click on the main categories, like Myke's talking about, just clicking on the fountain pen tab, they're sorted by popularity. Yeah, which is awesome. And it's a rolling window. I forget the range. It's not like an all-time popularity. It's a rolling window. I forget the range. It's probably a few months, something like that. So it's a short-term kind of a snapshot of what the most popular pens are right now. So that kind of gives you a starting point if you're shopping for any type of pen, pencil, bag. Every page has the popularity sort, and that's what that is. And that's what Myke's talking about there.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Let's just come across quite a nice-looking pen, the Pelican M205 Piston-Filled Fountain. Yeah, those are $109.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Those are sharp-looking.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They look very good, though. We need to stop looking because you'll be on there all day.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I do. So let's talk about what we're actually here to talk about today.