A few days ago we introduced a couple new features to the Job Board and Gig Board.

Attach your logo to a job

You can now upload your logo when you post a job. Adding your logo is entirely optional, but it’s a nice touch if you have one handy.

Highlight your job post

Highlighted job posts have a yellow background and green border. Depending on demand we may have to increase the price, but as of today it’s $25 extra to highlight your job.

Linebreaks!

Job postings uses to be single paragraphs but now you can enter multiple paragraphs. We’ve also relaxed the 1000 character limit so you can post longer job ads if you’d like (although we believe concise, to-the-point job ads are more effective).

We hope you find the changes valuable. Now go get or go post a job!

Special thanks to Jeff for doing a great job on this project.

Today we officially announce that Campfire has been optimized for the iPhone. Just visit your Campfire site with Safari on the iPhone and you’ll automatically see the iPhone optimized version.

Note: To scroll back through the transcript you’ll need to use the two-finger scroll technique as illustrated below:

We hope you find Campfire for iPhone useful! Special thanks to Sam for taking on this project and making it happen.

Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog:

How Expekt uses Basecamp to manage one of the leading European online gaming sites
“Late this summer I heard about Basecamp and 37signals. 2 months later our whole marketing department collaborates in Basecamp. Lost mails, confusion, and who’s doing what/when are no longer a problem.”

Library professionals use Backpack for presentations (and more)
MCLC Library Tech Talk, a technology interest group for the library professionals in Maricopa County, AZ, recently published a review/description of Backpack: “I use Backpack in particular to collaborate with colleagues on projects or presentations, and often use it to outline any presentation I might give.”

RunMyProcess lets you integrate your Basecamp information with other applications without any programming
“The global idea is to offer integration of Basecamp with another application without any programming: Just design the flow of information and select from our library of connectors the one needed.”

I watched Edward Tufte’s “Interface design and the iPhone” video and something about his voice sounded really familiar. Then it hit me: Compare it to Gene Simmons’ voice (his audio from that infamous interview he did with Terry Gross on NPR). They even strike a similar pose when, um, presenting information.

A couple Fridays ago, Carlos Segura, Jason Fried, Jim Coudal, and Edward Lifson (from left to right below) put on the second SEED Conference in frigid Chicago.

Sandy Weisz took some great photos of the event.

A bunch of folks blogged reviews: What I Learned at the SEED Conference | DK Design Studio SEED review | Visual Rinse SEED review | Fishsuit review (with 7-page PDF) | Giant Robots SEED review.

We’re looking forward to SEED III. When we have a date we’ll let everyone know. Thanks again to everyone who attended. We hope you found the conference valuable.

P.S. Special thanks to Sarah for handing registration and administrative details. She made it look easy all while handling a full load of 37signals customer support on a particularly heavy day.

Carlos at Cartype is putting together a gallery of car cut-away diagrams. I’m ever fascinated by how many parts go into making a car. Every little tiny piece has to be designed by someone and manufactured by someone. The precision required to make everything fit and function together reliably blows my mind.

“You have to be willing to do things that the masses wouldn’t do, or I don’t think you will be able to separate yourself from the masses.”

That’s the reason Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti gave for his decision to hire new coach John Harbaugh over more experienced candidates. Bisciotti ran a successful staffing company before taking over the team and talked about why he likes to take chances and go with his gut when hiring.

When he fired Billick on Dec. 31, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti said the decision was the result of a “gut feeling.” Choosing Harbaugh was no different.

Before becoming owner of the Ravens, Bisciotti took pride in hiring young, untested people for Aerotek, a highly successful staffing company in the aerospace and technology sectors. He used that method in choosing Harbaugh over an experienced head coach like Marty Schottenheimer.

“Do I like a guy that has to earn his resume? Yeah. I kind of made a living on hiring people with thin resumes and it’s worked out pretty well for me in the last 25 years,” Bisciotti said. “I think that works to John’s advantage. I said three weeks ago you have to take chances to be successful. You have to be willing to do things that the masses wouldn’t do, or I don’t think you will be able to separate yourself from the masses.

“Is it a little bit more of a perceived chance? Yeah, but the time we spent with John Harbaugh gave me a comfort level that we hired the right guy,” the owner said. “You go with your instincts, and I have pretty good instincts. ... I like the fact that John gets to build his legend right here.”

I always wonder why you see the same unsuccessful head coaches getting plum new jobs all the time. Bisciotti’s approach is refreshing…and offers a worthwhile perspective for hiring outside of football too.

Since the early/middle of 2007 we’ve been hard at work on a new product. It’s something thousands of our customers will use every day, but not a single one of them will sign up for it or log into it. It’s a silent partner. It’s called Queen Bee.

What is Queen Bee?

Queen Bee is the name of our internal unified billing, admin, and stats platform. Prior to Queen Bee, each one of our pay products had a different sign-up process, a different billing engine, a different coupon engine, a different affiliate engine, and a different back-end admin. That was fine for a while, but last year we decided it was time to take advantage of economies of scale and unify.

How about an example?

Many of our customers have multiple Basecamp accounts. Some may also have a Highrise account or a Campfire account.

So, let’s say you have two Basecamp accounts and a Highrise account and you want to update your credit card because it’s about to expire. Before Queen Bee you’d have to log into each account separately, click the Account tab, click the “change card” tab, and update your card. But now all you have to do is pick any account to update and you’ll see a screen that look like this:

You’ll see that if you have multiple accounts with us on the same credit card you’ll be asked if you want to update all the accounts or just one (or two) of the accounts. This makes our customer’s administrative tasks (updating cards, for example) a lot easier. Hassle be gone.

What else can Queen Bee do?

Queen Bee can do a lot of good stuff, but we’re not completely finished porting all our products over to it yet. We just wanted to give you a quick peek at what we’ve been working on. Stay tuned for another taste of royal jelly as Queen Bee development rolls on.

P.S. Big ups to Jamis for his incredible work on Queen Bee so far. From many different angles it’s been our most complex undertaking to date. So many moving parts, so many criticalities, so many hooks and loops and connections. All things considered, it’s been incredibly smooth sailing. Well done Jamis!

There’s nothing quite like an Apple product launch to bring out every arm-chair profiler to describe exactly what kind of people are lining up to buy.

From the treasure trove of Engadget’s comments sections come these astute piece of analysis on who’s going to buy the new MacBook Air:

It is a laptop for apple fans and people who rely on material goods to demonstrate their worth to other people.

This seems to be an incredibly useless laptop that really only has a market among the yuppies and Mac sycophants with cash to waste on an underpowered, 1-USB port, overpriced toy that in the end just looks pretty and nothing else.

It is primarily going to be purchased by people with too much time / money to do a little independant thinking (read: Starbucks junkies, college students with allowances from the parents, fashionistas, etc.).

I know full well what people i will see with this laptop and they aint the sort of people i get along with. Pricks basicly.

Expected delivery: February 11th. Can’t wait to join the rest of the sycophantic yuppies down at Starbucks where we can flaunt our lack of independent thinking and worth through choice of computer. Awesome.

EveryBlock, the hyperlocal news/data site from Adrian Holovaty and crew, has launched for Chicago, New York, and San Francisco.

What’s it for? Well, for example, you can see the results of all the restaurant inspections, crimes, business licenses, graffiti cleanup, building violations, etc. in your zip code, your neighborhood, or your street.

If you don’t want to go hyperlocal, you can zoom out. For example, here are all the recent filmings going on in Chicago right now. EveryBlock even lets you know which streets will be closed for block parties, parades, or athletic events.

For more background on this useful new service, check out the about EveryBlock page. I especially like how they’ve designed their own maps — real nice touch.

Adrian first told me about this idea over lunch about a year ago so it’s a real thrill to finally see it launch. Adrian, a fellow Chicagoan, is wonderfully talented and an especially nice guy. He’s a great guitarist too. The team he’s assembled for EveryBlock is top notch. I wish them all the best success with EveryBlock.