Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog:

Highrise
New in Highrise: Email Notifications, Daily Digests, Dropbox vCards
We launched a collection of really useful new features for Highrise: email notifications on notes and comments, daily digests via email for Deals and Cases, Dropbox vCards, and email shortcuts.

New in Highrise: Merge companies
Highrise has always allowed you to merge two people into one person. This is handy if you have duplicates or someone spelled someone’s name wrong and there are two separate entries in your Highrise contacts. Today we launch a long requested feature: Merge companies. You can now merge two companies into one company just like you can merge two people into one person.

Using tags in Highrise to organize your customer lists
“We spend a lot of time segmenting our customer and prospect lists so that we can pull different groups out for specific marketing campaigns. We created five priority tags—keywords you attach to contacts to categorize them…We prefix them with ‘@’ to keep these heavily used tags together and sorted at the top of the list. We also create tags to track how prospects and customers have interacted with us—ie. did they download a free resource, attend a teleseminar, buy a particular product or service.”

Basecamp
Linnea’s Baby Room project managed from start to finish with Basecamp
“I created a Basecamp project for the room design, which really made it easy for Gail, Aga and I to share ideas and links in messages, to create to do lists and manage the milestones of the project from start to finish. Basecamp was especially handy for accessing information (e.g. paint color, product URLs) when we needed it most.”

Backpack
An unofficial Backpack Tips page and Twitter account
“It catalogues the tips and tricks I have learnt over the last two years or so since I became a 37signals product user and general fan.”

Multiple products
Send real time updates from Wufoo to Highrise or Campfire
“We’re constantly hearing stories about how your teams and businesses depend on the ability to react quickly to the leads and registrations gathered with Wufoo. Because of this, we are excited to be releasing a new notification platform to help you send real time updates about the entries you’re collecting in Wufoo to your favorite web applications.”

New on the Launchpad: Deep links
We added a really useful, click-saving-and-time-saving new feature to the 37signals Launchpad (part of the new 37signals ID system). We call this new feature “deep links”.

37signals tools top the list at “100 Apps for Tech–Savvy Teachers”
“More than three million people use this application for a reason — it’s extremely effective for businesses and educators. 37 Signals makes it easier to collaborate, share, discuss and get work done through its programs.”

Subscribe to the Product Blog RSS feed.

I ran across the following video player UIs in the past 24 hours.

Blip

ESPN

Flickr

Google Video

Justin.tv

Metacafe

MySpace

Quicktime

Ustream

Viddler

Vimeo

Yahoo Video

YouTube

Do Americans have bad taste? It’s a question we discussed here a few months back. Related, here’s a piece where Kenya Hara discusses Japanese aesthetics.

When coming back to Tokyo from abroad, my first impression usually is: What a dull airport! And yet it’s clean, neat and the floors deeply polished. To the Japanese eye, there’s a particular sense of beauty in the work of the cleaning staff. It’s in the craftman’s spirit — “shokunin kishitsu” — which applies to all Japanese professionals, be they street construction workers, electricians or cooks…

There is a similar craftman’s spirit (“shokunin kishitsu” or “shokunin katagi”) in Europe. Yet in Europe I can see it coming alive only from a certain level of sophistication. –In Japan, even ordinary jobs such as cleaning and cooking are filled with this craftman’s spirit. It is is common sense in Japan.

Hara also discusses why Japanese cooks prefer knives without any ergonomic shape.

A flat handle is not seen as raw or poorly crafted. On the contrary, its perfect plainness is meant to say, “You can use me whichever way suits your skills.” The Japanese knife adapts to the cook’s skill (not to the cook’s thumb). This is, in a nutshell, Japanese simplicity.

[thx Eva]

Time: 21:02 | 01/19/2010 | Download MP3

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37signals ID launch
Start time: 0:26
We recently launched 37signals ID which gives customers one username and password for all their Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire accounts. In this segment, Jason and David talk about 37signals ID, what it means for customers, and what was surprising about the launch. Related links:

• 37signals ID
• Product Blog update: the 37signals ID rollout [Signal vs. Noise]
• [Preview] 37signals Accounts + The Launchpad [Signal vs. Noise]

A new way of working
Start time: 7:05
Jason and David discuss how 37signals is now working in teams. A team is made of three people: One designer and two programmers. A system administrator will also assist the team when necessary. Each team will stay together for two months (a “term”). When two months are up, the teams split up and form again with different people.

• 2010: The year of the products + a new way of working [Signal vs. Noise]

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