On Thursday at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco Apple and website publishing platform Squarespace announced a partnership that will place content from Squarespace publishers in Apple News. Apple recently announced that the Apple News platform would be open to bloggers and independent publishers.
Squarespace is a New York-based blogging and publishing platform and is the first CMS and web publishing platform provided core access to the app by Apple. Content from Squarespace blogs will be published to the Apple News Application using RSS.
In addition to RSS functionality, the Apple News partnership will support rich media, like images and image galleries, video, audio, Twitter and Instagram embedded content, and Markdown.
Unlike platforms like WordPress, Tumblr, and Medium, Squarespace does not provide a free option. Instead, the company targets SMBs and established content creators, and offers services like uptime guarantees and direct support. At publication, the company has over 1 million customers.
Apple News, according to CNET, will receive a redesign this year. The product is available on iPhones and iPads, and designed specifically for mobile content consumption. Each Squarespace blogger will have a custom channel located inside the Apple News application.
In addition to bloggers and publishers, the Apple News distribution feature will be made available to brands and merchants like Men's Fashion Post, Coffee and Crumb, and China Guide. For SMBs and merchants specifically Squarespace created a tool that tracks business-focused metrics like customer traffic source, purchase funnel, and checkout abandonment. "There's often so much information to wade through that it can become overwhelming and time consuming for small businesses, especially if they don't have the resources to parse through [the data] and find the most crucial points," said company spokesperson Natalie Gibralter. "Our focus is to surface key data and actionable insights to help merchants make decisions that can drive more sales."