Basecamp is an American web software company based in Chicago, Illinois. The firm was cofounded in 1999 by Jason Fried, Carlos Segura, and Ernest Kim as a web design company. Since mid2004, the company's focus has shifted from web design to web application development. Its first commercial application was Basecamp, followed by Backpack, Campfire, and Highrise. The open source web applicationframeworkRuby on Rails was initially created for internal use at 37signals, before being publicly released in 2004. In February 2014, the company adopted a new strategy, focusing entirely on its flagship product, the software package also named Basecamp, and renaming the company from 37signals to Basecamp. Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson have published several books under the 37signals name.
History
The company was originally named after the 37 radio telescope signals identified by astronomer Paul Horowitz as potential messages from extraterrestrial intelligence. Work on the company's first product, the project management applicationBasecamp, began in 2003. By 2005, the company had moved away from consulting work to focus exclusively on its web applications. The Ruby on Rails web application framework was extracted from the work on Basecamp and released as open source. In 2006, the company announced that Jeff Bezos had acquired a minority stake via his personal investment company, Bezos Expeditions. 37signals changed its name to Basecamp and chose to focus solely on that product in 2014. As of August 2018, the Highrise product also stopped accepting new signups. In September 2019, Basecamp gained some notoriety for purchasing Google Ads in the name of their own company because other organizations bought the keyword "Basecamp", causing four competitors to appear above Basecamp's own website in search results. Jason Fried called out Google's search result policy a "shakedown". A Google spokesperson responded that competitors are not allowed to use trademarked name in their keywords if the owner of the trademark files a complaint with Google. Since the story broke, Google has stopped competitors from using the Basecamp trademark.
Products
Basecamp
Basecamp is 37signals' first product, a web-basedproject management tool launched in 2004. Its primary features are to-do lists, milestone management, forum-like messaging, file sharing, and time tracking. Basecamp Next was released in 2012, while Basecamp 3 was released in 2014. Basecamp 3 supports replies by email, but does not support bottom-posting.
Campfire
Campfire, a business-oriented online chat service, launched in 2006. It was later merged into Basecamp 3, and was discontinued as a standalone service in 2013.
Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails is a free web application framework created by David Heinemeier Hansson, now a partner at Basecamp. It was originally used to make 37signals' first product, Basecamp, and was then extracted and released as open source in 2004.
Hey
Hey is a premium email service started in June 2020 by Basecamp. A few days after its release, Apple gave notice to Basecamp to create an in-app subscription option for Hey, threatening to pull the service's iOS app from the App Store.
Works
Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson published several books under the 37signals name.
Rework became a New York Times best seller.
Remote: Office Not Required, which is about allowing employees to work from remote offices, was also a New York Times best seller. The book was about 37signals' experience with a largely remote workforce.
