David Pogue pens a piece on The Flip — an ultra-simple point-and-shoot camcorder that’s taken 13% of the market (according to the manufacturer).

Somebody at Pure Digital must have sat through countless meetings, steadfastly refusing to cede any ground to the forces of feature creep.

And here’s all the stuff it can’t do:

The screen is tiny (1.5 inches) and doesn’t swing out for self-portraits. You can’t snap still photos. There are no tapes or discs, so you must offload the videos to a computer when the memory is full (30 or 60 minutes of footage, depending on whether you buy the $150 or $180 model). There are no menus, no settings, no video light, no optical viewfinder, no special effects, no headphone jack, no high definition, no lens cap, no memory card. And there’s no optical zoom — only a 2X digital zoom that blows up and degrades the picture. Ouch.

And the stuff it can:

Instead, the Flip has been reduced to the purest essence of video capture. You turn it on, and it’s ready to start filming in two seconds. You press the red button once to record (press hard — it’s a little balky) and once to stop. You press Play to review the video, and the Trash button to delete a clip.

Pogue says the secret is that it just simply works. It’s always ready, it’s always trustworthy, it’s always with you. The quality isn’t the sell, the convenience and foolproofery is. You can’t make a mistake, you can’t do anything wrong. Its purpose is pure to the core: Shoot quick videos without thinking about it.

I love it. Kudos to Pure Digital for having the discipline to make a camcorder for the rest of us.

[Hat tip to Chris for the link]

Highrise turns one today. Check out the original launch post from March 20, 2007. And here’s a 36-hour follow-up post with changes based on early feedback. It’s cool to look back at the comments from both posts.

Our fastest growing product ever

In terms of 12-month revenue growth, Highrise has been our fastest growing product ever. Monthly revenue for Highrise on its first birthday is about 3x Basecamp’s monthly revenue on its first birthday. Of course Basecamp was launched 4 years ago, and Highrise benefits from Basecamp, Backpack, and 37signals’ brand recognition, but we’re really pleased with the growth so far.

Some quick stats

• Nearly 5,000,000 contacts in Highrise
• Over 1,000,000 tasks created
• And just under 1,000,000 emails forwarded into Highrise

A $10-off coupon to celebrate

If you haven’t yet signed up for Highrise, here’s some extra incentive: Enter coupon code 1YEARHR in the coupon code box during the signup process and you’ll save $10 off your first month. If you already have a Highrise account, you can upgrade your account and use the same coupon code. Just log in, click the Account tab, select a higher plan to upgrade to, and then enter 1YEARHR in the coupon field.

Thanks again

Thanks again for your support. We hope you’re finding Highrise as useful as we are. Check out some recent posts about Highrise on the Product Blog.

Saul Bass is the master of film title design. Here’s his opening title sequence for “The Man With The Golden Arm.”

The backstory:

When the reels of film for Otto Preminger’s controversial new drugs movie, The Man with the Golden Arm, arrived at US movie theatres in 1955, a note was stuck on the cans – “Projectionists – pull curtain before titles”.

Until then, the lists of cast and crew members which passed for movie titles were so dull that projectionists only pulled back the curtains to reveal the screen once they’d finished. But Preminger wanted his audience to see The Man with the Golden Arm’s titles as an integral part of the film.

The movie’s theme was the struggle of its hero – a jazz musician played by Frank Sinatra – to overcome his heroin addiction. Designed by the graphic designer Saul Bass the titles featured an animated black paper-cut-out of a heroin addict’s arm. Knowing that the arm was a powerful image of addiction, Bass had chosen it – rather than Frank Sinatra’s famous face – as the symbol of both the movie’s titles and its promotional poster.

That cut-out arm caused a sensation and Saul Bass reinvented the movie title as an art form. By the end of his life, he had created over 50 title sequences for Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, John Frankenheimer and Martin Scorsese.

“Anatomy of a Murder” title sequence.

Saul Bass: A Film Title Pioneer offers Bass’ thought process behind his titles:

Saul Bass: “My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and the prime underlying core of the film’s story, to express the story in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would already have an emotional resonance with it”

As Bass went forward, he proceeded in perfecting these thoughts, creating mini-narratives which would help bring the viewer into the film.

Writer Ken Coupland feels that in this respect, Bass is something of a magician: “I believe that a great title sequence almost literally hypnotizes you, especially the work of Saul Bass where there’s a very strong repetitive swirling motion and abstract things that happen that’s putting you into a dream-like state.”

More of Bass’ title sequences after the jump.

Continued…

Certainly one of the most creative concepts I’ve seen in a long time. What a kick ass idea. Here’s more pictures and information about the artist if you’re interested.

[Thanks for sharing the link, Jeff]

Have you noticed the sweeping side line/crease cutting through the door handles (or just under the handles) on new cars lately? Cars from Honda, Mercedes, BMW, and now even Smart are sporting the ubiquitous crease.

Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog:

Extras
New tool lets you convert Basecamp projects to PDF reports
Export Reports is a third-party tool that lets you convert your Basecamp projects and information to a PDF Report that you can share, archive, or read offline.

Tips
Using rules in your email app to forward items to Backpack
“I create rules in my email client that automatically forward different items to my Backpack page. This is especially great for emails with attachments since the attached files are automatically placed onto the page.”

“Any thing emailed to my address & [email protected] automatically gets forwarded to my Backpack inbox, skips my Gmail inbox, and gets labeled ‘_ACTION’ in Gmail. I use this a lot; so do others. My supervisor, my friends, etc. can virtually place something in my Backpack inbox by emailing to that address.”

Thoughtful welcome message for getting clients started with Basecamp
David McDonald is a graphic designer who runs a freelance creative company designing print and digital publishing solutions. He recently wrote to us: “I just read the article on your blog: Social Signals uses Basecamp and GTD for project management and workflow and thought to send you the welcome message I put into all my new Basecamp projects for the benefit of my new clients.”

Case Studies
How indie filmmakers use Basecamp for producing movies
“The primary use for independent filmmakers and their complex film gigs is to use Basecamp for production. rāv design, a full-service video production and graphic design firm, loves Basecamp. ‘We used it to organize our 48 Hour Film Project. … [W]e were working with crew members from across the state who had never worked together, and in some cases never physically met before the shoot. We posted workflows, guidelines, rules and shared location scouting info all in an elegant location.’ For both clients and collaborators alike, how ideal of a work environment is that?”

Example “Backpack workflow for lightweight project management
When we were doing consulting, we had everything down to a science. Basecamp, while a great product, turned out to be too much of an app for our two man (and freelance designer) team. Here was our Backpack workflow for projects…”

Fancy time tracking software? Who needs it when Backpack gives you… Old fashion lists. Just keep track of your hours and add an item to the list at the end of each day.

Buzz/Press
Basecamp is a “tool you need to know about”
“With Basecamp, you can easily manage projects and your customers can sign-in and check the progress of your work. Basecamp allows you to keep track of To Do items or project milestones; share documents, images, and other digital files; and track time spent on various tasks.”

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A while back, David posted about what Gordon Ramsay can teach software developers.

Since then, I’ve been soaking in the BBC America version of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and loving it. Even if there is some reality TV BS going on, the program does a great job of showing the power of determination, attitude, and attention to detail when it comes to running a small business.

If you’re looking for a place to start, I recommend “The Curry Lounge” episode…

This do-it-yourself curry house puts the customers in control – allowing them to create their own dishes, and making life hell for the head chef.

This “create your own curry” scheme is the brainchild of the restaurant’s owner, a former sales director. He figures the best way to please customers is by letting them call the shots. But it’s not working. The food is bad, the chefs are apathetic, and the business is failing.

Enter Gordon. He scales back the menu, gets rid of the DIY ordering, creates a low cost lunch option to lure in new customers, builds buzz via a marketing event, and puts regional Indian favorites that the chefs love on the menu in order to rekindle their passion for cooking.

That last item reveals one more reason to design for yourself first: It keeps your passion alive. There’s no substitute for that.

Here’s Part 1 of the episode:

Links to the rest: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

Jamis, our resident whittler, had some fun with a piece of pine from a branch he found while visiting some relatives in Eugene Oregon.

Over the past couple of years, it seems that wifi networks are getting worse and worse where ever I go (slower, more packet loss, etc). No doubt related to the bazillion networks cluttering up urban airwaves. How is your wifi doing these days?

A slide from my South by Southwest presentation:

These are questions we ask each other before, during, and sometimes after we work on something. That something can be as small as a couple-hour project or as big as something that takes a few weeks or more. Either way, it’s important to ask questions like this in order to make sure you’re doing work that matters.

Why are we doing this?

Ever find yourself working on something but you don’t know why? Someone just told you to do this or that? It’s pretty common I think. It’s important to ask yourself (and others) why you’re working on this. What is this for? Who benefits? What’s the motivation behind it? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you better understand the work itself.

What problem are we solving?

What’s the problem? Are customers confused? Are we confused? Is something not clear enough? Was something not possible before? What problem are we solving here? Sometimes when you ask yourself this question you’ll find that you’re solving an imaginary problem. That’s when it’s time to stop and reevaluate what the hell you’re doing.

Is this actually useful?

Are we making something useful or are we just making something? It’s easy to confuse enthusiasm with usefulness. Sometimes it’s fine to play a bit and build something that’s cool, but it’s worth asking yourself if it’s useful too. Cool wears off, useful never does.

Are we adding value?

Adding something is easy, adding value is harder. Is this thing I’m working on actually making the product more valuable for people? Can they get more out of it than they did before? There’s a fine line between adding value and subtracting value. Sometimes adding is subtracting. Too much catsup can ruin the fries. Value is about balance.

Will this change behavior?

Developers have a tendency to add stats to a screen just because they can. Counts, totals, sums, averages. Numbers can look cool, but do they change behavior? Does it matter if someone knows there are 38 of these instead of 42? Does it matter that someone knows it took 0.08 seconds instead of 0.02? Sometimes it might, but it’s important to constantly ask yourself: Will knowing this information change someone’s behavior? Can they do something useful with this information? Will they make a better decision because of this information? If not, pull it out of the interface. Data without purpose is noise.

Is there an easier way?

There are lots of ways to do things, but for simplicity’s sake let’s say there are two primary ways: The easier way and the harder way. The easier way takes 1 unit of time. The harder way takes 10 units of time. Whenever you’re working on the harder way you should ask yourself is there an easier way? You’ll often find that the easier way is more than good enough for now. Most people’s problems are pretty simple — we just imagine they are hard.

What’s the opportunity cost?

What can’t we do because we’re doing this? This is especially important for smaller companies that are more resource constrained. Limited time makes prioritization more important. If we work on feature A can we still do Feature B and C before April? If not, would we rather have B and C instead of A? Is A really worth the opportunity cost? Ask this all the time.

Is it really worth it?

This one should come up all the time. Is what we’re doing really worth it? Is this meeting worth pulling 6 people off their work for an hour? Is it worth pulling an all-nighter tonight or could we just finish it up tomorrow? Is it worth getting all stressed out over a press release from a competitor? Is it really worth spending $1000/week on Google Adwords? Is it really worth…?

The questions listed above are just some of the questions we’re asking ourselves all the time. At the end of the day it’s all about making the right decisions about the right things at the right time. These questions help us get there.