But we won’t just be talking about audio slideshows, we’ll actually try to produce one on-the-fly – so make sure you bring your throat spray and practice your articulation!

I will also do a live demo of Squarespace, showing just how easy and quickly you can put together a great little website. In fact, I am hoping to be able to create a full website within the 55minute session, so I’m setting myself a big target! If you are in London next Tuesday and want to see how it’s done, learn more about to the tools out there, hear my tips and pitfalls to avoid, then pop on over to NetSquared and sign up. Everyone is welcome so please do stop by!

NOTE: All comparisons and info below relate to Wordpress.org, which is the installed version that you download and install on your own hosting. I am not including Wordpress.com in this comparison, which is the hosted version of WordPress that you sign up / subscribe to. This comparison is for professionals and small businesses, and I don’t feel that WordPress.com is the right choice for this purpose.

Similarities between WordPress & Squarespace

There are a number of similar characteristics and functions of the two products; here’s a few of the most relevant ones. Both:

• Can be used for creating and managing blogs or a variety of different types of website
• Are cost-effective, starting at a few pounds per month for hosting/subscription
• Allow you to use your own domain name (instead of something like http://yourdomain.wordpress.com )
• Allow non-technical people to update the website text/content without much training
• Offer a lot of visual design flexibility, in which an experienced designer/developer (like me) can create polished, professional websites quickly ; however, there are some design limitations with both systems
• Use template-based designs that can be easily changed, customised or tweaked in future without affecting the content
• Have a number of search-engine-friendly elements built into the way the pages/sites are structured
• Offer the ability to have multiple authors/editors with different levels of editing permission
• Have the capability to use/embed Flash, video or other media within the site
• Have their own quirks – things that don’t quite make sense – but are easily worked around once you figure it out

So what are the main differences?

About Squarespace

Squarespace is a full-featured hosted content management system (CMS) designed for websites and blogs.  Users pay a monthly subscription fee to Squarespace in return for hosting the site and access to the content management system. You don’t download anything and you don’t need to find hosting: as soon as you sign up online, you can get started working on your site.

Squarespace Pros:

• The subscription fee includes full technical support from Squarespace. Response times have been quick in the past: anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.
• Cost effective: the lower level subscription rates are comparable to the cost of standard web hosting, with a lot more included.
• Very intuitive content management system: incredibly user-friendly (the best I have seen at this price point). It is clear that Squarespace developers focus a lot on usability.
• Offers scope for additional functionality (eg custom forms, private client pages) through built-in features & modules that are easy to set up, usually even by non-technical people. These modules are supported by Squarespace’s tech support in case of any problems.
• Basic website statistics are built-in, and conveniently accessed through the same login used for editing the site.
• All the infrastructure is managed by Squarespace. This means future product upgrades are applied automatically by Squarespace, so you don’t need to install anything or worry about whether you are using the latest version (you always are).
• Everything’s in one place: if something goes wrong, you know it’s Squarespace. With WordPress, you sometimes can’t easily tell whether it’s a WordPress problem or a problem with your hosting provider, making troubleshooting take longer.

Squarespace Cons:

• As a fully-hosted solution, you cannot shop around for better hosting deals: you are tied in to Squarespace’s hosting and prices.
• Some added features are only available through higher monthly fee subscription packages.
• Some features cannot be easily customised without a designer/developer’s help (custom coding).
• The statistics that come built into Squarespace are not as detailed as those from Google Analytics or other web analytics tools (note: you can install Google Analytics or other on Squarespace).
• Squarespace is not a huge company with thousands of developers, so product improvements and enhancements are not released as often as with bigger CMS products, nor as often as new plugins for WordPress become available.

About WordPress

WordPress is an open source blogging platform that can be adapted for use as both a standard website CMS and/or blog.  You need a suitable hosting provider and a downloaded version of WordPress to get started. Once this is installed, you login to your WordPress admin panel to work on the site.

WordPress Pros:

• WordPress is available free of charge, without having to pay a license fee or subscription, so the only cost related to purchase is the cost of web hosting. This means you can shop around for the best hosting deal, or move hosts in future should you choose to.
• WordPress is one of the world’s most-used and well-supported blog CMS platforms; it has an active support community and a development roadmap, with frequent upgrades that constantly improve functionality and security. Out of all the open source blog CMS platforms, it’s the one I recommend most.
• A huge range of 3rd party plugins is available to expand the functionality of WordPress. The variety of plugins available is far greater than the variety of modules available for expanding Squarespace. Plugins include website analytics/ statistics through Google Analytics (just one example).
• The fact that it is open source (rather than commercial) appeals to some clients from an ethical perspective. This means that you are free to use the product without many restrictions of commercial software, and are supporting the open source ideology.

WordPress Cons:

• The fact that it is open source (rather than commercial) is a barrier/turn-off to some clients. They want the assurances that come with a commercial organisation developing and taking responsibility for the product. They want to be able to hold someone accountable, and be able to contact someone whose job it is to respond, in case of any problem.
• Although WordPress is a popular platform, it is reliant on the pool of open-source developers for all product improvements and bug-fixes, who do this free of charge, primarily in their free time. Therefore, it can sometimes take a while for bugs to be fixed.
• The user interface for administering and editing is a bit less intuitive than Squarespace, and not as user-friendly.
• Most added features are only available as 3rd-party plugins or widgets: this means they are not supported by WordPress, and can sometimes cause compatibility issues when the WordPress platform is upgraded. And sometimes they are just plain rubbish, as there is no quality-control process. Anyone can develop and release a plugin/widget, so there’s a high chaff-to-wheat ratio.
• Because WordPress is an installed application, someone must manually upgrade the product whenever a new version is released. Failure to upgrade can cause security risks, but upgrading can create compatibility issues (see above).

So which is better?

There is no right or wrong answer: the best tool will depend on your own preference, and whether you have someone you can trust to help design/develop/administer/train on that particular platform. Because as easy as they both are to use, it can really help to have someone who knows what they are doing to work with you, at least in the beginning.

Both Blinksale and LessAccounting appear to be suffering from a few teething problems, which is really not something you want to have to deal with when it comes to finances:

• LessAccounting had a problem linking my invoice to my PayPal account, meaning my client couldn’t pay the invoice online. He got an error message instead – not good.
• LessAccounting also seems to have a glitch where it sometimes displays the amount due as £0.01 even when you enter the payment in full (and double-check it is the exact/correct amount).
• Blinksale created real invoices every time I previewed a design in the template chooser. This meant I reached my limit of invoices without ever having created one! It also meant I had to manually go and delete the invoices. And worst of all: when I sent an email to Blinksale to inform them of this glitch, I received no reply.

Aside from the above, there were also more fundamental reasons why Freshbooks won my business:

Integrated, customisable reminders

FreshBooks will automatically send reminders of overdue invoices at up to 3 different time periods you specify. You can customise the text on each reminder, meaning I could use a different tone of voice in each subsequent reminder (and warn the client when they are about to start accruing interest for overdue payments). Blinksale has one single template for all reminders, and I couldn’t see a way to specify when they are sent. LessAccounting doesn’t offer reminders at all; instead, they want you to sign up to – and pay for – yet another system called GettingPaid.

Integrated timetracking

Freshbooks has a really easy-to-use timetracking tool that is easily customisable to track your time by project, client and/or task. You can then invoice the client at the click of a button. There is also a standalone app timetracker for Freshbooks, and the uber-chic can also get the timetracker on their iPhones, too. Blinksale has no timetracker, and LessAccounting make you sign up for yet another separate app (TimeLessSpent) just to do timetracking.

Simple interface / excellent usability

Entering my expenses in FreshBooks was a dream. I sat down with a pile of receipts an in no time I was able to input them all and generate reports for my accountant. LessAccounting’s expense function is a bit more complex than it needs to be IMO – I mean, who wants to fill out a Tax Deduction Expense Category, specify how you paid, or write a bunch of tags for every receipt? Maybe larger businesses will benefit from this level of detail, but not me. And Blinksale has no expenses feature.

As a general rule, all the other tools and screens in FreshBooks are also more simplified than LessAccounting. If you need/want a lot of detail, then maybe LessAccounting would be a better match for you. Plus, with LessAccounting you can (in theory) link directly to your bank account, so you can keep track of incomings and outgoings all in one place. In practice, I couldn’t get the link to my bank to work.

Blinksale is also very user-friendly – in fact probably the most simple of all three – but I’d say that some of the templates it includes border on the cutesy. I don’t want a sunshine on my ‘thank you for paying’ email. And the bottom line is that it’s just not as rich a package as what you get from FreshBooks for around the same price.

Support

Blinksale scored a big fat ZERO for support, as they never replied to me, but both LessAccounting and FreshBooks were very quick to respond whenever I had a query or problem. Maybe I just got lucky, but the really cool thing for me in terms of support was when I suggested to FreshBooks that it would be nice if the expense reports included the name of the vendor… they agreed this was a good idea, and a few weeks later, it had been done.

Branding

I was able to brand my FreshBooks site to match my business colours and logo, meaning that when clients log in to monitor timesheets or pay an invoice, it all looks very polished and professional, like an integrated part of my business. I don’t think LessAccounting or Blinksale is meant to be seen by anyone other than employees or your accountant, so this point isn’t entirely comparable… but it’s a nice touch nonetheless. And in fact it highlights the fact that Freshbooks is more than just an accounting tool, it also includes some client/project/relationship management features as well.

The downsides to Freshbooks? There are few but they include:

• Limited invoice templates. Very limited. Two, in fact. Um, TWO?!? Yes, this is one area where Blinksale and LessAccounting both beat Freshbooks by a mile. LessAccounting has the most standard templates, and Blinksale has plenty too – plus you can even design your own by importing a CSS file.
• No ability to upload photos/scans of receipts for invoices… LessAccounting does this, but it’s more a nice touch than a deal-breaker for me.
• No ability to individualise the email that goes out with each invoice. You can customise the general template, but sometimes it’s nice to add some notes or comments to the specific client. LessAccounting does this, as does Blinksale.
• No ability to automatically add interest for late payments. Blinksale is the only tool I tested that does this.

I didn’t get a chance to test out every single feature of all the tools – for example, the estimates/proposals features of FreshBooks & LessAccounting, but for basic management of business finances, I am happy with what I chose.

So if you think you might like to try FreshBooks yourself, do me a favour and sign up by clicking here or on the round green button. Those kind folks at FreshBooks will give me a little discount for every referral, which is nice. And if you do decide to sign up, let me know how you like it. I reckon it’s a pretty sweet app.

So I guess in effect it is less accounting – because you can’t issue any invoices! Not quite the effect I was aiming for. Here’s hoping that the issue is resolved soon.

UPDATE: The lovely people at LessAccounting responded to my support request within 30minutes, and it turns out I was doing it wrong. All works fine and dandy… just remember not to enter a £ in the amount for invoicing!

I had a good long look at all the different web applications currently available, and narrowed it down to 3 that I felt were most appropriate for my needs: Blinksale,  LessAccounting and FreshBooks. They all do invoicing, and some do a lot more. One of them even allows your accountant to access your accounts directly through the system – and anything that takes the hassle out of bookkeeping gets a big thumbs up from me. There are dozens of others, but I chose these 3 to trial for different reasons:

Blinksale is an invoicing tool and nothing else. I like the simplicity of the interface, and the ability to send clients reminders when payments have gone overdue. Sometimes simpler is better… only time will tell. Full details of Blinksale features here.

LessAccounting handles invoices AND expenses, plus it allows you to keep track of sales leads and business proposals, too. The real selling point for me on this one was the ability to take photos of business expense receipts on your iPhone and upload them directly to LessAccounting. Nice! Full list of LessAccounting features here.

FreshBooks is similar to LessAccounting insofar as it handles all the usual accounting stuff (invoices, expenses, reports, etc), but it also integrates a handy time-tracking tool that means you can easily track time spent on a project and then invoice for that time. Full list of FreshBooks features here.

I reckon I will give them all a whirl for a few months before I decide on the right tool for me. In the meantime, if you have used any of the above and would like to share your opinion, please do so. I did look at quite a few other tools, and decided against them for various reasons, but I am willing to try another if there’s one you really love.

I see this question being asked a lot, and I’ve realised this is akin to asking a stranger ‘Which vehicle should I buy?’. What’s the answer: Ferarri? Hatchback? Lorry? Bicycle? Motorcycle? Without knowing what you will use it for, it’s impossible to answer. And even if you tell me you want a family car to cart your kids around and run errands, the best answer depends on factors such as whether price is more important than fuel economy, whether you have 6-foot-tall teenagers or triplet toddlers, and ultimately, which one feels most comfortable to you when behind the wheel.

So the answer to ‘which tool’ has almost nothing to do with which tool is the ‘best’, and everything to do with what it is that you are trying to achieve, and with whom. The very words ‘online collaboration’ could have lots of different meanings:

• I want to share documents online, and let others edit them
• I want to have meetings online instead of travelling for face-to-face meetings
• I want to manage a project that has lots of remote stakeholders, and easily keep everyone up-to-date
• I want to be able to easily track all of the things my team and our external partners are working on together
• I want a central place where all the discussions and files about a project can be stored and accessed

and so on.

Earlier this month I had the pleasure of attending Netsquared’s London NetTuesday meetup which was focused on online collaboration. A representative from Huddle (Andy, I think?) was there, and he did a good job of covering what are the potential benefits of online collaboration, as well as covering the main features available. I think Andy and I are in agreement that the best tool depends on many factors, so I’m going to summarise his and my tips on how to choose the best tool for your needs.

What is it that you are trying to achieve?

Are you trying to save time – if so, whose time? Increase a sense of unity within a team? Cut down on resource-heavy meetings? Stop things slipping through the cracks by centralising information? Move away from email? Any of these are valid goals, and it’s a good idea to make note of your aims before you even start looking for a product. Make sure you revisit this at every stage of the way to ensure you are still on track to achieving it.

What tasks/processes do you need to perform?

Make a list of all the actions you/your team need to do, and prioritise the list into essentials and nice-to-have. It’s important to be as specific as possible, and make sure you are listing human actions rather than technical functions. For example:

Good:
Ability for remote team members to communicate through text, not necessarily in real-time

Bad:
Online forum

Why? Because the former is open and could be achieved in different ways (forum, wiki, chat room, etc). Stating something like ‘online forum’ is limiting, and is a statement of the tool (I want a handsaw) rather than the need (I need to cut wood). Limiting yourself in this way closes doors that could have led to better ways of achieving the same thing.

Who will be using it?

Are they technical or non-techie, based in one location or geographically dispersed, mature Sales Directors or young Office Assistants, native English-speakers or not, enthusiastic communicators or isolated solo-flyers? Many tools available can perform the same function, but the best one for your needs depends on who will use it, and how often. Also be sure to think about how they will be trained on the tool.

Who will be supporting it?

Many people make the mistake in thinking that externally-hosted online tools need no user support within the business. I think this is the number one factor contributing to failure of the tool being used and adopted. While it’s true most of these tools are very easy to use, and most offer some level of support from the supplier, you should always factor in having someone act as user support within the organisation. This person needs to act as the point-person for questions, training, adoption & embedding. They don’t have to be technical – tech questions can usually be referred on to the supplier – but they do have to be patient, good communicators, and pro-active. In large organisations, it pays to have a ‘champion’ like this in each department, with one overall administrator/super-champion.

What is the scale / duration of your project?

If you just need something for a few team members working on a short, fixed-term project, you can afford to choose a tool without much research aside from the above. However, if you are looking to create a permanent extra/intranet or manage a long-term programme with many stakeholders, you should consider going through a full evaluation process, including setting up trial accounts and gathering feedback on a few products before making your decision.

What is your budget?

The costs of online collaboration tools range from free to several thousands of pounds. The more expensive ones are not always ‘better’, but they do tend to come with greater levels of tech support… and often, greater levels of complexity that you may or may not need. But don’t be put off by free/cheap fees: many online tools operate on a volume basis so you might be surprised to find complex, feature-rich products even at the lowest price point.

How quickly do you need it?

Many tools can be set up within a few mouse clicks, while others will require installation and configuration. Weigh up the benefits of quick setup on an entirely external server, versus those of having something installed that your tech support team can have access to. How will the data be backed up? Can we survive if the tool is temporarily unavailable due to maintenance? How easy is it to get our data in and out? Or do we just need to get on with it NOW?

Do you have other systems to consider?

Would it be beneficial for your online collaboration tool to link in with Outlook, Google Calendar, LinkedIn or Facebook? Do you have existing internal data storage systems that will need to feed into (or out from) your new online collaboration environment – how will this happen, and is it even possible? Can you achieve what you want by simply changing the way we use existing tools or bolting on new modules, rather than bringing another different tool into the mix? It’s worth bearing these important questions in mind because the answers can have long-term ramifications.

I hope the above will help you in evaluating which tool is best for you. In a future post, I will try to mention a few ‘best of breed’ tools that you might want to look at for various different online collaboration needs. Remember, the best way to determine which car is best for you is to take it on a test-drive: no amount of good advice can replace putting yourself behind the wheel.

Speaking of hats, I have also had the opportunity to dust off my web design hat, as I’ve been designing websites and HTML email campaigns for these shiny new clients… and in fact I have also spent a couple of days this Christmas break redesigning my own photography website, to boot. It’s been a real design-fest this month!

This is a website I designed for Bubblegus, who specialise in management consulting, personal coaching and event management. As the client wanted to be able to update the site themselves, and to have the flexibility of adding new pages and sections without having to get a designer involved again, I opted to create the site using Squarespace. Squarespace is a neat little online CMS/blogging platform that has really nice Ajax drag n drop design tools built in. The administration on the back end is also very user-friendly, with lots of drag n drop functionality and helpful tips right on the page. There is a monthly fee involved, but the cost is on-par with decent web hosting, so there’s no real disadvantage to using Squarespace over free CMS/blogging tools. Although creating the design took longer, the site build only took a matter of a few hours, and I was able to tweak the design via Squarespace live in a client meeting to get things ‘just so’. I’ve been really impressed with the speed of deployment as well as the ease of use, and I would wholeheartedly recommend Squarespace to small businesses as an alternative to Wordpress. In fact, I have 2 other Squarespace projects on the go as I write.

As mentioned, I have also redesigned my photography website, which was in need of some TLC. For this project, I opted to use good old-fashioned HTML and CSS, with a little bit of Flash & XML thrown in. It’s been a great exercise to brush up my hand-coding skills, as well as giving me the opportunity to fiddle around with the photo galleries built into Adobe Lightroom. If you need any photography, please have a look at my site and get in touch .

I reckon this is my last posting of 2008, so here’s to having a great New Year’s Eve and an even better 2009!

The answer really depends on your circumstances and needs. Each tool has its strengths & weaknesses, and the lovely people at Techsoup have made this handy chart as part of their review of seven popular blogging platforms, to help you match your needs to a blogging tool. Bear in mind this chart/article is from 2006, and there are new kids on the block (such as Tumblr or Habari) as well as other types of online tools that now have a blogging add-on (such as Community Server, ThoughtFarmer and Confluence)* just to make things more confusing!

The good news is that the Big 4 (WordPress, Blogger, MovableType and TypePad) are still going strong, so you can still use this chart as a base, as long as you remember that there may have been upgrades and changes to the services/products since the chart was made.

I’ll also give my own two cents about these in a moment…

But first, a little poll: last night’s moderator, Amy Sample Ward,  asked the group what platform they used, and it was no surprise that a majority of people in the room used WordPress. It’s free, extendable, has a great support community, so it’s no surprise it’s the most popular tool. A substantial proportion of people last night had started on another platform, but had moved to WordPress in the end. It’s pretty common to do this, so I thought I’d stick in a quick word about moving from one tool to another. In most cases, you can move your blog from one environment to another, but it’s not going to be painless, so it’s a good idea to think about what you really need from a blog and choose the right tool from the beginning. There’s a great article on ProBlogger about choosing the right blogging platform for you, so have a read through that if you want a detailed checklist.

As for me, I’m just going to summarise my thoughts in a nutshell, with some analogies to get you thinking:

Blogger

Blogging with training wheels

Great for new bloggers, especially people who already have a Google account (Gmail, iGoogle, Google Cal, etc). Because it integrates with your whole Google ‘world’, it’s free, easy to set up and requires no technical know-how to get blogging. There are limitations, but basic bloggers who need no frills should be fine on Blogger. I recommend Blogger for personal blogs rather than work ones.

Movable Type

The swiss-army knife of blogging

Great for companies who want a flexible platform that you can install and run multiple blogs or entire websites on, and don’t mind paying for it. You can effectively replace your content management system with Movable Type, but you’ll need a capable tech team/person/consultant to get it running the way you want. Amy suggested that it can be hard to change once it’s been set up, so make sure you plan well at the start.

TypePad

Package-holiday blogging

There are different levels (costs) of TypePad packages that offer different levels of customisation, numbers of authors and amounts of storage. It’s a hosted service, so there’s no real tech skill required to get started. TypePad is a good choice for companies/organisations who don’t have the desire or internal tech-nous to host blogs on their own servers, but still want the option of running multiple blogs cheaply, quickly and easily. However, like a package holiday, you may not be able to easily add extras to the basic package.

WordPress.com (Hosted version)

Stickle-brick blogging

The hosted version of WordPress is easy to use, with no technical skill to set it up, and there are hundreds of ready-made designs (themes) for you to choose from. The main thing to remember about WordPress, is that you bolt on bits to give you extra functionality or customisation. Some of these bits are easier to bolt on than others, and there are some overall limitations to the hosted version of WordPress. I recommend WordPress.com for smaller organisations or companies who want a basic, professional-looking blog for free, and may want to have multiple authors on a single blog (not multiple separate blogs).

WordPress.org (Installed version)

Blogging with Lego

The main differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org is that the latter is installed instead of hosted, there are thousands of different ready-made designs (that you can tweak if you know how), and there are loads of different add-ons that you can plug into your blog to give you added functionality. Just like Lego, the combinations and creativity is seemingly endless. The downside is that you need some basic technical knowledge in order to get the most out of the installed version of WordPress, but you can find web hosts that offer 1-click installation so you can get up & running without needing to install anything yourself. I recommend WordPress for organisations or people who are already using other web tools or social media, and want easy integration – for example, Google Analytics, Flickr, iCal, etc – or anyone that knows they’ll be blogging for the long-haul. WordPress itself is free, as are most design themes & plugins, but if you don’t already have hosting, you’ll have to pay for that.

WordPress Mu (Installed)

Toybox full of Lego

The only difference between WordPress Mu and WordPress.com is that Mu allows you to run multiple separate blogs off the same WordPress installation – and you can set different levels of permission on each, too. Everyone can play!

* A Final Note

Lots of people ask whether they should set up & use a separate tool for blogging if they are already using other ‘2.0′ web tools, such as wikis or community sites that have blogging add-ons. It really depends on a lot of things, such as:

• Are we willing to compromise flexibility or functionality for the ease of having it all in one place?
• Would we be splitting our audience’s focus too much by having things on different platforms?
• How well-developed is my wiki/forum/intranet/community/CMS platform’s blogging tool? How easy is it to use? How well-supported is it? How does it compare to standalone blog tools?
• Is it really cheaper to stick with one integrated system; what is the real cost (factoring in user frustration, time, etc)?
• If I use separate platforms, can they integrate in some way – through RSS, for example? Is that enough?

Remember that you can hammer a nail with a monkey wrench, but you may not get the best result, it may be a lot harder… and you may look like an idiot doing it!

The main thing to remember overall, is that no blogging tool will make you a good blogger. You have to start blogging for the right reasons, with the right voice, and in the right environment – something I’ll cover in my next post.