Blogging Basecamp 2 20 May 2005

19 comments Latest by GO777

On May 17th we started development of Basecamp 2, a revamped version of our popular Basecamp web-based project management tool. We’ll openly blog the successes, setbacks, and progress of the endeavor on the Basecamp 2 Development Blog.

The goal of Basecamp 2: If we can simplify, we will. If we can make something faster, we will. If we can make something clearer, we will. If we can make something more useful, we will. Basecamp 2 is about better.

Basecamp 2 is also going to be a gradual release. It’s not going to launch on a certain day, rather it’s going to launch constantly. We are rewriting much of it from the ground up, mostly focusing on one section (to-do’s, or milestones, or email notifications, or…) at a time. When the new version of that section or chunk of functionality is ready, we’ll roll it out and push it live.

Here we go.

19 comments so far (Jump to latest)

Jon Hicks 20 May 05

Cool, now that Basecamp has overtaken my life, I can’t wait to see what you come up with for 2.

Dr_God 20 May 05

Not to be a stickler or get off on a tangent, but if you are going to continue to gradually release updated areas one at a time like you’ve done in the past, it really can’t be called Basecamp 2. It’s just more of an ever-evolving Basecamp. Call it Basecamp Infinite ? if you will. ;)

Dr_God 20 May 05

Oops. That “?” was supposed to be the infinity (∞) character. Not to get off on another tangent, but I wish the 37 boys would bring the “Preview Comment” button to SvN.

Larry 20 May 05

Is there an API coming, like the one just announced for Backpack?

Anonymous Coward 20 May 05

Just curious: whose voice is that on the development blog?

JF 20 May 05

Dr., well, we’re rewriting everything from scratch basically so it is “2.0-like” but the release may be over 4 months instead of all at once. We’d rather give people the new stuff when it’s ready rather than have to make people wait for 4 months for all the new stuff at once.

Ben Hirsch 20 May 05

Reading this blog is like watching a great TV show week after week. Keep it coming JF.

Alex King 21 May 05

This is very cool! I’m guessing you guys just havn’t got around to turning on comments yet?

cjoh 21 May 05

What happened to Writeboard?

Steve 21 May 05

Could you blog about your development environment? Just curious as to what you guys use for an editor, source control etc. Thanks and keep up the great work!

Christian Romney 21 May 05

Why on Earth would you re-write from the ground up? Seems like an awful waste of effort.

John 21 May 05

Sounds like XP(extreme programming) to me. Hopefully, you will conduct some usability testing this time round. My clients have been disappointed by BC1.0. I have confidence in your company though so I’m sticking with it.

PS Will you enable comments on the Basecamp 2 Dev blog to collect customer feedback?

Alex Aguilar 21 May 05

rich text editor in Basecamp 2 please ;)

JF 21 May 05

PS Will you enable comments on the Basecamp 2 Dev blog to collect customer feedback?

We will not have comments on the Basecamp 2 dev blog. We’ve collected hundreds (perhaps thousands) of bits of customer feedback over the past year.

We’re now working on putting some of those into action.

4m 22 May 05

Ben Hirsch 20 May 05
Reading this blog is like watching a great TV show week after week. Keep it coming JF.


I agree with 100% Reminds me of the Seinfeld days.