Greg 12 Oct 05

“Over 100,000 people and small businesses use our web-based applications to get things done the simple way.”

That’s fantastic! Did you have any idea you would reach this milestone as quickly as you have? Has there been any pleasant surprises?

milos 12 Oct 05

Really fantastic! Contgratulations and thank you for the great news! It’s a pleasure to use basecamp and see it grow. Great Job.

Dan H 12 Oct 05

Nice site, nice writeboards. So, why is there a charge on my credit card?! Get that one a lot, huh…?

(Your Ta-da link on this post goes to the everything basecamp link about writeboards.)

Chris 12 Oct 05

Do you think anyone will make it through the ‘About Our..’ sections?

Lance E. Leonard 12 Oct 05

“Over 100,000…” Is this a how many users (paying or free) have ever signed up, or how many are actively using the various products. I would be very interested to know how many active subscribers (last login maybe?) each product has 6 months after going live, separating out those that signed up just to see what the hype was all about.

Chris S 12 Oct 05

Nifty, thanks, and congratulations!

The other Chris has a good point.

I’d boil each of those About Ours down to the logo, the quote, and a link that expands the rest of the blurb Ajax style.

Brad 12 Oct 05

why the move away from text as gif images (or png, whatever they were)?

what is the rational behind a gigantic long about us?

Also, why is writeboard not integrated in the look and feel of basecamp? is that for sharing, etc?

congratulations on the milestone.

Dan H 12 Oct 05

I haven’t done any studies, but I bet since this blogging thing got popular, people scrolling down thru one long page got more normal.

I think when i skimmed the page, the parts I cared about jumped out at me, and I think clicking less and having fewer pages is good. The scroll wheel is my friend.

Josh Williams 12 Oct 05

Great home page. I’m jealous. Well done.

Tim Uruski 12 Oct 05

The comparison chart on the Ta-da List page needs to be told about the new limit. :)

Great new homepage, I like the single-page, scrollable text, very easy to use.

JF 12 Oct 05

Also, why is writeboard not integrated in the look and feel of basecamp?

Basecamp’s design will be “freshened up” next week to match Backpack and Writeboard.

Jim Barney 12 Oct 05

Your change of focus from designing stuff is clear.

Your new home page sucks monkey balls.

Let me just say this: That annoying habit you have of yellow-highlighting half a paragraph… you need to quit it. There’s no point highlighting stuff if it’s half the freakin’ text on the page, genius.

I would also have appreciated a “more testimonials” link instead of that mass of text you’ve got. Only you 37s people and your mothers will be interested enough to read all of that.

Just IMHO of course. YMMV.

PS: It is disingenous to count all the customers who signed up for your free doo-dads (of which I’m sure there are tens of thousands) and stretch that into your claim that you have hundreds of thousands of customers. Just because some dude test-drove a ta-da list doesn’t make him a real customer.

Mike 12 Oct 05

New HTML for text on 37s is mad hot Jason, great work.

Even tho Ryan probably did it haha ;)

Andrew 12 Oct 05

“It is disingenous to count all the customers who signed up for your free doo-dads…and stretch that into your claim that you have hundreds of thousands…”

The claim is actually “Over 100,000”, not “hundreds of thousands.”

What makes you think there’s not that many active users?

Don Wilson 12 Oct 05

Updates from my two favorite companies in one day.

Excellent!

matt jankowski 12 Oct 05

This homepage redesign was clearly done solely to incorporate 37 pixel tall text into the page. If my suspicions are right, you want “37” to be everywhere, and will be revealing 33 new products between today and March 7, 2037 — at which point your true plan will become obvious to us all and we’ll hit ourselves for not having seen whatever it is coming.

iv 12 Oct 05

Perhaps it’s just Safari, but the text is now awfully close to the left edge of the screen. Or is that a design thing?

JF 12 Oct 05

New HTML for text on 37s is mad hot Jason, great work. Even tho Ryan probably did it.

Ha! Nope, the new site is all me. Ryan is busy refreshing the Basecamp look and feel to match Backpack and Writeboard.

Ruminator 12 Oct 05

I would be interested in hearing how scaleable Ruby is (i.e. how many concurrent users, etc. you’ve been able to sustain).

I also wish that BackPack allowed multiple lists on each page instead of one list.

JF 12 Oct 05

I would be interested in hearing how scaleable Ruby is (i.e. how many concurrent users, etc. you�ve been able to sustain).

Everything is “scalable” with more hardware. Our cluster is set up so we can throw as many new app servers as we need to to handle the load.

Sam 12 Oct 05

That begs the question, how many servers do you have in your cluster now?

John Kemp 12 Oct 05

What happened to the site concepts page? I enjoyed showing people the examples of 37 Google and 37 PayPal for clean and logical site design/improvement.

Also, the new home page redesign seems a bit in your face. Perhaps it might have been a little cleaner to stop before the “About Our Products” section and provide a hyperlink. I guess you could say, “a little less noise. More signal please.” That’s just my two cents.

Great products, though. Writeboard and Backpack are great. I also enjoy the blog.

JF 12 Oct 05

That begs the question, how many servers do you have in your cluster now?

Enough ;)

Robert Gremillion 12 Oct 05

Maybe the front page could simply link to a Write Board page with all of their product information…

RS 12 Oct 05

New HTML for text on 37s is mad hot Jason, great work. Even tho Ryan probably did it.

No, props to Jason on this one. I’ve been busy with these webapp whatchacall’ems.

gwg 12 Oct 05

It’s your web site, but the centered text kills me.

Why so much centering? Why mix the reading axes?

Sam 12 Oct 05

so, based on the fact that its nowhere to be found on your site, does that mean that 37s no longer does design/consulting?

Darren James Harkness 12 Oct 05

Ah! Evil scroll makes me work to get content! Honestly makes me shudder. Give me some friggin’ hyperlinks to the different sections for chrissake. Don’t make me, the user who is itching to give you money, work to do so.

Confusing copy for the products’ pricing:

“Free. $12-$99/month. “

Which one is it? Why would I choose one over the other? Why not $0 - $99/month instead with a hyperlink to the pricing and signup page, which illustrates pretty clearly the difference in the packages?

No obvious way to make contact - it’s in the middle of a whole bunch of content, or hidden at the bottom.

In short, bring the old site back - not because I’m resistant to change, but rather because it was just simply better.

(Also, if you have to have a page explaining why you’re charging people’s credit cards, then there’s obviously a very serious flaw in your signup process, which indicates you’re not clearly explaining that there WILL be a charge to the card.)

Don Wilson 12 Oct 05

Enough ;)

Probably three 600MHz Orange iMacs running 9.1 ;)

JF 12 Oct 05

The product sites explain the products. The main site is just there for a launchpad and some basic info.

Darren James Harkness 12 Oct 05

As an addendum to the above, sending users an automatic email 2-3 days before the 30-day trial explaining that their card will start being charged, along with a link to cancel, might help mitigate this.

JF 12 Oct 05

Also, if you have to have a page explaining why you�re charging people�s credit cards, then there�s obviously a very serious flaw in your signup process, which indicates you�re not clearly explaining that there WILL be a charge to the card

Before you throw around “obviously a very serious flaw” you may want to ask us why the link is there. You don’t know as much as you think you do.

The reason is that the products are called Basecamp and Backpack but the line item on the credit card charge is “37signals, LLC” because that’s the name of our company (that’s the credit card company’s rules). People can understandably be confused by that so we explain it clearly behind that link.

Ryan 12 Oct 05

Darren - Read the page. It explains why there would be a question.

Don Wilson 12 Oct 05

I thought it was a fantastic idea that you guys put up at the top “A charge on my credit card?” because that would immediately come to mind when you see a company name on your bill and go to their website. My dad has to have me find the website(s) that own the products and cancel the service because he doesn’t know what he’s being charged for.

Darren James Harkness 12 Oct 05

Then why not mention that in the signup process and any other billing-related communication? Even after having identified this as an issue, you haven’t made any modifications to the signup page. Christ, all it takes is one sentence in Section 7 of the signup form: “Please note: This charge will appear on your credit card statement under our company name ’37signals, LLC’.” Problem solved.

If the user doesn’t know something, it’s not their fault - it’s yours.

JF 12 Oct 05

Then why not mention that in the signup process and any other billing-related communication

We do. It’s at the top of every invoice and in the welcome email they get when they sign up. People forget. Not a lot of people, but some people and we want to make it easier on them should they forget.

Go sell a product and you’ll quickly realize how much “Please note” gets overlooked or ignored. Even “IMPORTANT NOTE” or “READ THIS OR ELSE.” These things happen so the link is there for a final safety net.

And, for the record, if someone doesn’t know something it can most certainly be their fault. It’s often ours, but it can be theirs as well. People are not absolved of all responsibilities the moment they hand over some cash.

Wise Don 12 Oct 05

There are no stupid users, only bad designers.

Mathew Patterson 13 Oct 05

Darren said:
all it takes is one sentence…Problem solved

Hehe. If only this was the case, ecommerce web design would be a lot simpler. In reality, a lot of people either don’t read these notes, or read it and forget it, or misread it completely.

This is the kind of thing we struggle with constantly.

Ruminator 13 Oct 05

The reason I asked about server load is to try to determine how well Ruby compares to Java (I’m a java developer now, but am interested in Ruby on Rails (pretty slick tool), but I would like to know if any studies have been done to show how well Ruby handles server load compared to Java. My company won’t let me pursue it if it isn’t close). Or is that some kind of ancient secret known only to a few…

andreas 13 Oct 05

I liked the old look much better. The typography used to express what I thought to be 37signals simplicity mantra. The serif font (especially for the body copy) reduces readability and looks unfittingly “ornamental”.

And I second the point of the two Chriss above.

Just my spontaneous thoughts.

Jarkko 13 Oct 05

Ruminator: Not an answer to your question (you should probably ask it in the Rails mailing list, there’s quite a lot of apps that are serving huge loads on Rails), but consider this: hardware is cheap. All that Rails needs to scale is putting in more servers. Share nothing.

On the contrast, developer time (and sanity and turnover) is insanely expensive. If your developers are a lot more productive and happier, why would you cry over a few app servers?

Andrew White 13 Oct 05

Rather like the new look, but I miss the feature where you showed befores and afters for 37express! I found them inspiring, and liked to trot them out to show folks that simple can be attractive and intuitive.

Ryan 13 Oct 05

Wise Don - There are no stupid users, only bad designers.

Not true. Stupid users definitely exist.

Kyle 14 Oct 05

I’m really diggin on the new design of the front page. Well, not so much the design, but the writing has a great tone to it. Almost Google like, but still 37s speaking.

And lest I forget, thanks for everything over the last year. Thanks to the 37s, I’ve got a job developing in RoR making more than any job I’ve had previous.

Cheers,

Kyle

Fred 14 Oct 05

The product sites explain the products. The main site is just there for a launchpad and some basic info.

If the main site is a launchpad and a place for basic information, why on earth does it take 5211 pixels in height? I mean, isn’t that a little over the top? I’m sorry, but this has got to be the worst thing I’ve seen from 37s.

It actually defines a new boundary for skimmable content.

Anonymous Coward 14 Oct 05

Only a designer would measure the height of a page in pixels and base their opinion of the “purpose” on that stat. READ THE DAMN TEXT PEOPLE. It’s chunked into short narrow paragraphs. It’s readable, informative, and real.

Brad 14 Oct 05

nice call moving back to the graphical text for the headline.