is a social network owned by SUP Media where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary - a wide variety of political pundits also use the service for political commentary.
N/A
Square Online
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Square Online (formerly Weebly) is a basic content management system with blogging and eCommerce features. It can be utilized for building standard websites or specialized webpages for online stores.
$6
per month
Pricing
LiveJournal
Square Online
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Personal
$9.00
per month
Professional
$16.00
per month
Performance
$29.00
per month
Free
Free
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
LiveJournal
Square Online
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
Pricing decreases when paid annually:
Personal - $6/Month
Professional$12/Month
Performance - $26/Month
If you are having students create websites or information pages about something they are studying in class, this is a great option. The fact that students can spend less time getting situated and learning the app and get right to work researching and creating their pages is great. For middle to high school, this is a fantastic app to use. However, if you want more nuanced analytics or want students to focus on blogging more than webpage building, this is limited.
The friends list feature aggregates content posted by the users and communities you follow, so you don't have to visit each individual journal.
The privacy settings are easy to use and understand. Posts can be set as public, friends-only, private, or you can create a custom privacy filter that enables access only by certain users you have approved.
LiveJournal offers a wide variety of journal styles and customization options, with the most options available to paid subscribers.
Communities enable users to make online friends and connections who share similar interests. Users may comment on posts and initiate conversations with original authors and other commenters.
Drag and drop interface makes it very easy to add all types of content, including images, text, video (and YouTube videos), embeddable applications and more.
It's very easy to set up navigation features like cascading menus and sticky navigation (where the menu stays put - may depend on the template chosen though).
A technical backend is fairly straight-forward for setting up a fav icon, 301 redirects, SEO, Google Analytics, etc.
LiveJournal is a bit clunky. Posting is easy, but formatting a post can be a bit difficult, especially if the user doesn't have much HTML expertise.
The search function is practically unusable. When searching for a community to join or check out, it is difficult to wade through the list of results. Often times, the results that come back are not related to the topic a user is searching for.
Weebly doesn't have a lot of templates to choose from, so if you don't have any experience with CSS or HTML, it's hard to customize your site to an extent.
Weebly isn't fully SEO friendly. They don't allow you to add H1 tags to pages out of the box.
You can't create folder structures when it comes to web page URLs. You can put web pages under a main menu dropdown, but they don't allow you to put all sub-menu items in a structured folder (like site.com/folder/page-1 and site.com/folder/page-2).
Weebly is consistently adding features that line up with our needs. The ease of use makes it the perfect program for us since we have users of multiple age brackets and knowledge of web design. We love that we can give users access to only the pages they are affiliated with
It's good enough to get quick and simple websites online, but lacks the complexity offered by more robust or custom e-commerce systems. We knew this going into it, so our expectations were set and limited. The system does a good job of helping users simply check out, and it saves our admins time with an easy to use user interface.
LiveJournal does not hold a candle to any of these alternatives in my opinion. The above options allow for more flexibility with their free suites, and provide more professional results with less work. We actually do not use the LiveJournal much anymore because these other alternatives work far better. We used it only as an additive to what the other products bring us
Weebly's designs, plugins, and customization options are a little more advanced in some cases than other similar programs. WordPress requires a different level of expertise and knowledge of code, keywording, and plugins, so I wouldn't even compare them. Wix is a little more user-friendly because you can drag and drop your design, which was very convenient for customizing your site. I didn't personally select Weebly, but it is user-friendly and nearly anyone comfortable with a computer could figure it out. Weebly support is also pretty good.
Weebly has allowed our business to create a connection with our customers by offering home decor, cooking and styling tips.
Weebly gives us the chance to relay information to customers regarding merchandise, current sales and promotions, store hours and locations etc. Which has helped increase business.
Weebly has given our not very tech savvy business the opportunity to have a website and stay relevant with our competitors.
