Backpack has always allowed you to share pages via email, but the person on the receiving end had to have a Backpack account before they could view the page. We were never really happy about how that worked. We finally did something about it. Big thanks to Jeremy for making this happen.
Now you can share Backpack pages with anyone in the world via email — even if they don’t have a Backpack account. They don’t even need to know what Backpack is.
It’s the quickest and best way we know to share a functional web page or informational page with someone (or some people). Share to-dos, photos, notes, whatever. Pages you share via email are fully functional. Multiple people can collaborate on the page together by adding new list items, checking them off, adding a note, a file, a photo, etc.
And if they do decide to sign up for Backpack, they page will be pulled right into their account as a shared page. It’s all automatic.
We hope you find this enhancement useful. If you don’t already have a Backpack account, sign up for one today.
Joey
on 22 Jul 08Really great idea. Is there any way to make the page read-only?
Dennis Frank
on 22 Jul 08Yes! Great! Waiting for something like this for years. Thank you so much!
I like the public sharing feature too. But only if the page does not appear as a link on a public page (like the former shuffle page). Can I use it without fearing the shuffle page comes back?
JF
on 22 Jul 08Dennis: Shuffle is dead, but your public page could still be indexed by a search engine so tread carefully if you really don’t want it to be public. Public definitely means public.
Anonymous Coward
on 22 Jul 08JF: It’s good to hear that. The page is public if you know the URL. I would never put sensitive data on it.
Richard Allum
on 22 Jul 08Great idea but 2 problems: 1. The invitation gets hit by Outlooks spam blocker 2. Invited users can see all my writeboards in the whole account and not just the ones linked to the shared page.
JF
on 22 Jul 08Richard: We’re checking into that Writeboard situation right now.
Keith
on 22 Jul 08I love it!
I have need of this functionality beginning on the 29th so THANK YOU to everyone involved!!!
Paul Smith
on 22 Jul 08How do you prevent people from signing up for a low cost account and just sharing pages with people? Do you just figure most people won’t go through the hassle to bypass paying more money? By the way, the feature does look quite nice.
DjD
on 22 Jul 08This looks great guys. I’ve been working on some trip itinerary planning for when my parents visit in September… this will save a step in sharing it with them without needing to have them create a new account or make the page public. Brilliant!
Matt Brown
on 22 Jul 08Guys, thanks a TON for this feature. I honestly have hardly ever shared any pages, because it’s always a bit much to ask people to sign-up for an account, just to collaborate. Going to share a lot more, going forward :)
Bob
on 22 Jul 08Thank you 37Signals. This has been the one feature that has stopped me from really using Backpack in my consulting business.
You would really make my day if you had password protected public pages!
ep
on 23 Jul 08I’m scared now because this seems very insecure. Please tell me that I’m wrong.
Ben Mills
on 23 Jul 08This is a great feature. Not everyone can persuade their whole team to use Backpack. I’ve been wanting this for years.
Matt Radel
on 23 Jul 08Great idea. I’m sure you guys will snag plenty of subscribers this way.
seaofclouds
on 23 Jul 08finally! when working with clients, it’s sometimes difficult to convince them to sign up for another account – especially if they already use basecamp. this is a huge improvement.
Jason
on 23 Jul 08If you invite more than one person are the URLs unique? Meaning if I invited Bob and Joe and Bob lost the link to the page, could he still ask Joe for the link and be able to log in with Bob’s email?
JF
on 23 Jul 08Jason: The URLs are unique to each person’s email address. If someone forgets the URL you can just invite them again.
This discussion is closed.