73 people says things!

1. I’m so glad I haven’t been the old person thinking these things for the last few months!

   I used to have a huge amount of respect for 37Signals, but I think since Basecamp, they have swollowed their own hype far too much. I think alot of their design has suffered too - look at the app homepages for example, faaaaar too much going on to make sense of.

   As for the productivity and ‘get real’ tips, I think some of them are just too rediculous to even contemplate. What gets me is the huge number of people that go with this ‘well if 37s are saying it, I should be doing it’.

   Alot of my initial respect, and I suspect alot of others, came from the fact that they were the underdogs and had their feet on the ground. I don’t think this is the case anymore - they certainly don’t have their feet on the ground anyway.

   By LB on August 10, 2005 10:29 am

2. Comments not working?

   By LB on August 10, 2005 10:30 am

3. Thanks for your thoughts.

   You as much as anyone knows that when you’re small, when you don’t have a PR team, when you don’t have a marketing team, and when it’s just you and a few other guys you need to build your own buzz.

   We don’t buy buzz, we don’t fake buzz, we build buzz because that’s our only option. Isn’t that what you advise your clients at BusinessLogs to do? Use their blogs to communicate with their current and potential customers? Tell them what’s up, what you believe, what you think may benefit them, and what’s in store for the future?

   We’re genuine in our enthusiasm for our products, our ideas, and our mission. And we’re going to continue to communicate that.

   We’ve never said our way is the only way. We don’t believe that and would never advocate that. We’re just putting our worldview out there for other folks to learn from, disagree with, or pick some good and some bad. We hope it helps.

   And we also give back a lot to the community. The free open source Ruby on Rails being perhaps the best example of that. And we think Rails deserves all the hype it’s gotten (as ODEO, 43things, Blinksale, Strongspace, Adaptive Path, and others can attest).

   So, yes, hype begets hype, and for some people a little hype may be too much hype, but we think on balance we deliver plenty and we have a loyal and passionate customer base and to back that up.

   As for Writeboard, dude, it’s going to be the greatest fucking app you’ve ever seen. Nothing will ever come close. EVER!!!

   By Jason Fried on August 10, 2005 10:39 am

4. Where do these quotes come from? Who said them?

   By jackson on August 10, 2005 11:17 am

5. Oh man, don’t anger 37 Signals, or they’ll create an app that will destroy you (albeit very slowly and with few features, but at least they’ll spin your death in a positive way, saying that you finally “got real” with “less life.”

   It’s really the blog community that has embraced and over-hyped 37 Signals. It’s too bad that they seem to believe their own hype, but if their numbers start slipping you can bet they’ll adjust. And who knows, maybe they’ll come up with a second idea for a web app some day?

   By Jough Dempsey on August 10, 2005 11:20 am

6. Nice entry. I agree with the perception of 37signal’s marketing efforts. They seem to be espousing a Steve Jobs/Apple-esque ego. We all know how polarized people are about Apple. It seems to be the same irrational behavirr again. But then again, human beings aren’t rational beings.

   However, what they’ve done, they’ve done extremely well. They’ve created a framework based on an awesomely dynamic language. They’ve created simple to use products. For this they should be praised.

   Other writings that pop into my head:
   Joel Spolsku’s Five Worlds of Programming - what works for one (small team, iterative proces) won’t work for another. (No link required, I hope)

   And the Hegarty tradeoff - written here by Grant McCracken http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/2005/06/mintrel_marketi.html

   By JohnO on August 10, 2005 11:28 am

7. Kathy Sierra has some opinions of her own on this topic posted in her review of 37 Signals at Creating Passionate Users. Funny how these two reviews happen within 24 hours of each other.

   By Dave Giunta on August 10, 2005 11:28 am

8. I agree with you on this one. I have loved 37signal’s work for a long time, but have noticed them getting awfully preachy lately. Like you said, it’s just the way they word things, like this is the way to do it, not just a recommendation.

   And another thing that bothers me is they keep saying that software needs to be small and only do one thing well. Like you have basecamp for projects, then another one for making lists of stuff, then they think Blinksale is great for invoices, then something else for payroll, then something else for X.

   Pretty soon you’re going to be paying $300 a month to subscribe to all of these little micro-sites, none of which talk to each other; and by that time it would have been much more cost-effective to just buy Quickbooks, even if you don’t use all the features.

   By Derek on August 10, 2005 11:52 am

9. I only disagree with some of this. The part about self-praise is just marketing broohaha. Any company that want’s their product to succeed *must* revere it. If a customer sees that the company has no passion for their own product, then why should they believe in it either?

   I only wish that I could create 1/4 the hype they do when they announce a product launch…

   By Kyle Posey on August 10, 2005 11:54 am

10. Also what is up with most of this post being in the grey boxes? I can’t tell what is a quote and what is you speaking. Are you just pulling quotes from SvN or something? Just confused me for a minute.

    By Derek on August 10, 2005 11:54 am

11. Paul…

    Kudos to you for having the balls to speak your mind.

    That’s all. :)

    By Jeff Croft on August 10, 2005 12:01 pm

12. Sorry, I will fix the comments to reflect where I got them. I had to take nap there for a second :-) Bad idea after publishing an entry.

    By Scrivs on August 10, 2005 12:18 pm

13. And just for the record regarding Writeboard, the app has been about 75% done for a few months, but we shelved it to get both Ta-da List and Backpack out first. We thought those would be more interesting for more people.

    As far as integration between our “assload” (read: 3) of products, we’re working on that and we’ll get there in time. We’re gathering customer feedback now and we’ll be spending more time on this soon.

    By Jason Fried on August 10, 2005 12:29 pm

14. “…Because 37signals did one thing great, most people already assume the next thing will be great and even if it isn’t they have convinced themselves that it is already…”

    So? Is 37S supposed to now be responsible for the critical thinking skills (or apparent lack of) of their audience and user base?

    By Mark on August 10, 2005 12:50 pm

15. Upon examination few things are (especially thoughts, motives, and logic that are not your own) safe from criticism or being perceived as flawed. Especially when you’re criticizing objective goals and timetables that you might not be adequately informed about. Personally, I believe your nit-picking some low hanging fruit here.. Sometimes this is useful, sometimes it is not. At the end of the day I say if you can do it better, or smarter, then go on, do it!

    By Cody Lindley on August 10, 2005 12:55 pm

16. Scrivs. Kudos to you for starting the conversation. Unlike your entry yesterday, this one is more productive, and the participation of Jason only adds to that.

    By Ryan on August 10, 2005 12:59 pm

17. I use 37signals products (Backpack and Basecamp) and appreciate what they do, but I’ve never thought of them as overhyped. I just read their stuff and move on.

    Maybe the people who don’t find use in their products are the ones who feel they are overhyped.

    This is an interesting exercise you have going, Scrivs. I’d be interested in your take on statements such as:

    “brings more order to the web”
    “find exactly what you’re looking for”
    “put your site in front of millions of eyes each month”

    How can you (or do you need to) reconcile hype from other companies and all the hype that has gone into 9rules? Where is the line between hype and overhype? When you become successful?

    No hate. Just questions, and my undying love and respect.

    By Britt on August 10, 2005 1:01 pm

18. Mark, I already touched upon that in the sheep section and by mentioning how some of the hype and expectations isn’t their fault at all, but our own. Not sure where you were going with that.

    By Scrivs on August 10, 2005 1:01 pm

19. Anyone else feel Business Logs is overhyped as well?

    By Anon on August 10, 2005 1:08 pm

20. Britt, I was waiting for someone to mention that. As for that copy (which can be found on the 9rules site for anyone who didn’t know) I think every company that starts off sees their offering as the next greatest thing and many times the copy will reflect that. Basecamp was the same way and it was justified. However, after they got their buzz I think now all announcements and whatnot should be toned down.

    You will see in our writings now concerning 9rules that we put the hype engine away for a bit and now just talk about what we do.

    And we do put your site in front of millions of eyes each month ;-)

    By Scrivs on August 10, 2005 1:10 pm

21. See Mr. Anon, you have it all wrong. BusinessLogs will be part of a separate series: Ignoring the Ignored.

    Unfortunately, Business Logs is the only entry in that series.

    By Scrivs on August 10, 2005 1:12 pm

22. The more posts I read like this the more I distrust the motive. It sounds as if this post is designed to have just the right amount of controversy to drive traffic. The title of the post itself says you can hardly wait for the backlash.

    Is “Getting Real” a cliche? Maybe, but 37Signals certainly try to practice what they preach. (As opposed to just preaching.)

    What’s the difference between hype and promotion? Doesn’t 37Signals give everyone a chance to TRY the product for free? Where’s the foul?

    They weren’t the first small team to create something? What’s the point?

    Anyway, don’t worry, I’m not upset. (Who would be?)

    Just curious, that’s all. ;)

    By Geoffrey on August 10, 2005 1:20 pm

23. 37Signals is a great company and SvN is a great blog. However I’m not drinking the Koolaid regarding Basecamp (which we use, for now) being a ground breaking application. It doesn’t even have sufficient data export and syncing capabilities. If Microsoft did that in an app, we’d scream. Where’s the API?

    By Tom on August 10, 2005 1:22 pm

24. I’m glad 37s can bring so much attention to their products. They’re obviously doing something right here.

    I’m more troubled by the ‘Get Real’ philosophy. Not that it is in itself wrong, but I can see the horde of inexperienced managers and sloppy programmers who use this kind of rational as an excuse for poor planning and bad execution.

    At the end, it’s not the methodology that matters, it’s the quality of your team.
    37signals has a talented team, and they should communicate of that instead.

    By cedric on August 10, 2005 1:23 pm

25. I guess I just see this series as being a bit misdirected, that’s all.

    I think you could’ve made your point about the general lack of critical thinking skills in the online / blogosphere world (buying into the hype) with one general post directed toward the [sheep] bloggers, instead of toward the companies.

    It’s not the responsibility of the companies to turn down the PR on their products / services - it’s the responsibility of the customer / potential user to turn on their common sense.

    By Mark on August 10, 2005 1:44 pm

26. Mark - I totally disagree.

    It’s the responsibility of an entire community to maintain a high level of discourse. Blaming the readers of SVN because 37s kinda-sorta forget to mention that Getting Real is just XP in disguise is absurd (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_programming, http://www.softwarereality.com/lifecycle/xp/case_against_xp.jsp). This is the same crap that passes for political discourse these days, where politicians conveniently misstate facts and pinhead journalists dutifully grant “equal time” to indefensible viewpoints.

    By Michal Migurski on August 10, 2005 2:12 pm

27. Getting Real is definitely influenced by the Extreme Programming and Agile Development movement, but we also toss our own ideas about design and business process into the mix.

    We’ve never claimed Getting Real is groundbreaking or exclusively our thinking. It’s a series of ideas we’ve developed over the years based on our own experiences and the experiences of others.

    By Jason Fried on August 10, 2005 2:50 pm

28. Paul,

    I would say you have a point here, however, you also underestimate the market.

    37 Signals isn’t Coca-Cola or Pepsi spending vast amounts of money to generate artificial hype. The hype created around 37 signals producs is due to a community that has formed around their products and what they do becuase the products are in fact good.

    Obviously, those guys must be something right to accomplish that.

    I’m glad to see someone take a different perspective on 37 signals. It’s always important to see what’s not being said when praise is massly abundant.

    By Jim Jeffers on August 10, 2005 2:59 pm

29. Michael -

    I’m not sure what you disagree with. You said, I think, the same thing that I just did -

    “it’s the responsibility of an entire community to maintain a high level of discourse…”

    When the sheep go astray, you herd the sheep in. You don’t go to the wolf and scold it.

    By Mark on August 10, 2005 3:01 pm

30. …I can see the horde of inexperienced managers and sloppy programmers who use this kind of rational as an excuse for poor planning and bad execution.

    Cedric,

    You only need to dig deeper into 37s’ Getting Real pitch to realize that there’s just as much planning and execution involved as with traditional requirements documentation/process. It simply takes a unique route to arrive at the same product. As Jason has stated, Getting Real is not a new idea, just re-packaged with some personality upgrades.

    I, for one, use the agile development methodology for all of our work, and I can assure you the end result is just as well-planned and implemented. Just not as many 100+ page FRDs :)

    By Geof Harries on August 10, 2005 3:33 pm

31. This conversation is quite lively and very fruitful I believe. I’m an avid user of Basecamp and I do think that it’s quite a great product. It’s definitely changed a lot about the way I’ve built my new nonprofit company. But, like any tool, you bring your own baggage and ideas to it. You need to remember that a tool is only as good as its users. You can’t use a spanner to unscrew a screw.

    37signals have reminded us of how best to do marketing. They use the practices that you’d get in any Marketing 101 class at any school worth its salt. The mistakes that most people make are listening too much to criticism and not listening enough to criticism. This goes to customers as well as passive consumers.

    37signals is doing a healthy thing as far as I can tell in listening to these well-formed arguments (thanks!), but not necessarily doing anything major _because_ of them. A strong business capitalizes on momentum, but does not make any major decisions because of it. Jason and the boys have done a wonderful job of finding this balance.

    As for the hype, go for it. I don’t believe in overselling yourself. 37signals has created the hype well and the “sheep” that follow them are learning valuable lessons from what they have to say.

    I’ve never seen any sign that they think that they are “right” or the “only way”. That’s way too absolutist. As far as I can see, they are willing to accept well-formed criticism and listen to it. A company should stand behind its products and its people and they do a great job of this. If you believe so much in yourself it can certainly come across as arrogant, but it’s only just high self-esteem.

    We should only learn from what they have done and take away whatever it is we need from that. The generosity that 37signals shows in giving away their code base and sharing their business practices is the model upon which all companies should be run.

    37signals, great job. Great job Paul on identifying the cracks in the pavement.

    By Aaron Huslage on August 10, 2005 4:19 pm

32. “Funny how these two reviews happen within 24 hours of each other.”

    Maybe… or maybe not. What prompted *my* review was that the level of 37 Signal “love” has finally hit such a high level that I could not help but pay attention. But that much passion always comes with extra heavy scrutiny and criticism. People can be just as passionately *against* something as for it, so 37 Signals should not only expect it, but *welcome* a mini backlash. (Look at all the Apple haters).

    But as Don Norman says, “If some people don’t hate your product, it’s mediocre.” Better to have some who love it and some who accuse others of drinking the koolaid, then to have *everyone* like it.

    The biggest test of whether a company has passionate users is whether detractors are considered “brave” for speaking out against the obviously sheep-like, non-thinking, emperor-clothing-appreciators.

    Jeff’s comment to Paul :
    “Kudos to you for having the balls to speak your mind.”

    Means I can now check that one off on my “Does 37 Signals have passionate users?” checklist ; )

    Whether the complaints are justified or not doesn’t matter in that equation, although it DEFINITELY matters in the future if 37 Signals intends to keep and grow their passionate user base. That they’re listening to everyone’s comments — good and bad — is a really great sign.

    By Kathy Sierra on August 10, 2005 4:20 pm

33. Mark -

    Point well taken. How does your metaphor map onto the situation at hand? Who is the wolf, and who is the shepherd? Maybe I’m troubled by the very idea that there are sheep in the equation at all. I’m reading Scrivs’ frustration with SvN as a broader complaint against the pronouncement business model - the way that talking about “Getting Real” has basically boiled down to a series of “Do this, don’t do that” directives. When have simple commandments ever worked in the real world? Personally, when I hear stuff like this I want justifications, counter-examples, war stories and clarifications. Doing so may knock the Revolution off of Salon’s front page, but certainly makes for a more productive conversation.

    Anyway, enough blather from me.
    I wrote more at http://mike.teczno.com/notes/rediscovering_america.html.

    By Michal Migurski on August 10, 2005 4:21 pm

34. Hmmmm, my complaints about 37signals certainly aren’t about their marketing engine because I think they’ve done a fabulous job there (as have 9rules and Firewheel Design with Blinksale).

    I unsubscribed to SvN awhile back because of their ad-driven approach on what I see as a company blog and because the content they provided didn’t have any value to me.

    As for Basecamp, I actually find the application has a number of drawbacks and quirks. These quirks drive me to say, “what’s all the ruckus about?” Like file uploads… I click upload, and while it’s uploading I go back to write my message. Suddenly it shoots me down the page to tell me the upload is done while I’m typing mid-sentence. Yikes! Why not display a status message in an unobtrusive location instead of tearing me away from what I’m working on?

    Now, if only I had time to build a Basecamp killer. :)

    By Jonathan Snook on August 10, 2005 4:45 pm

35. I start to hate a song, when it’s waaaaay over-played on the radio.

    It’s a vicious circle set in motion by the adoring consumers of the song (transfer to product or service in ths case). We hype…then hype some more…then hype about the hype…and soon we’ve hyped something up to the point of puke-inducing, sick and tired of it, this thing sucks, can’t stand it never really did, get it out of my face or else syndrome.

    I don’t like the big fonts in Ta-Da List. That’s my issue. :)

    By HJ on August 10, 2005 5:56 pm

36. I think this is the most cunning marketing globosphere ploy of all time - 9Rules as foil for the 37Signals brand, ensuring that duelling discourse is continuing in the interim between product launches, and everyone wins some much-needed exposure.

    Good work, guys, you’ve raised the bar to the next level.

    Can we start talking about the real things now, like nailing down that whole current version number of the web… Web 0.6 or Web 8.2.3 ?

    </sarcasm>

    By monkey dancing shadow on August 10, 2005 6:05 pm

37. Right now I pay $24 to Basecamp (because while I don’t need 15 projects on my current plan the $12 Basic plan’s 3 projects is not enough) to keep shared to-do lists, $9 to Backpack to keep shared items, mostly to-do lists and also have a free account on Ta-Da where I keep free to-do lists. So the debate between 37signals services is which one of them will do the best job of managing to-do lists for the least amount of money.

    There is a lot of unnecessary hype surrounding 37signals, Getting Real, small teams, Ruby on Rails, and all of it seems to overlook that from all outward appearances this is a company whose core competency is making the most technologically impressive web-based to-do lists in the damned world. I’m personally looking forward to Writeboard to see what kind of to-do list functionality _it_ will bring to the table.

    Seriously, folks — enough. Ruby on Rails will not necessarily cure cancer, small teams will not necessarily bring peace on Earth and 37signals’ business model and design philosophy will not necessarily bring about a fabulous new knowledge economy where there is never unemployment and the Dow skyrockets past 15K.

    These things are all useful tools, but when we’re talking about these things the focus is on the tools and that’s like discussing the Empire State Building and emphasizing the sorts of hammers used to build it. That’s fine if you’re into hammers, but otherwise it’s completely missing the point of what’s being examined.

    By David Demaree on August 10, 2005 6:37 pm

38. Wow Paul, you always have to be an arrogant asshole. This is why I ditched out of Forevergeek - your head is so far up your ass that you can’t see anything, much less the wood or the tress.

    By Angry Ex-Scivs Fan on August 10, 2005 7:09 pm

39. As a semi-celeb at SvN, let me say that I completely disagree, but your opinion does have some validity.

    All told, SvN is getting away from the edgy political and design issues and does, in fact, have more and more self-promoting “stuff”.

    But I just looked at it, and ya know what? It’s their blog! More power to ‘em.

    By Don Schenck on August 10, 2005 7:12 pm

40. That’s fine if you’re into hammers, but otherwise it’s completely missing the point of what’s being examined.

    But we are into hammers; I think that’s the point. The hype situation seems a lot more extreme if you follow a lot of blogs about design/interface/programming (read: hammers), but that makes sense. If you subscribe to RSS feeds from a dozen design sites, you’re going to get a glut of 37signals from time to time. 37signals has to launch most of its PR through these channels for awareness to filter out into the larger world. If you’re in the bubble, you just have to get used to the fact that there will be a little more noise along with your signal.

    I think they’ve done a nice job of keeping SvN from overflowing with self-congratulation and marketing. I’ve never read it as the kind of blog where every post is the most important thing ever; it’s just commentary about design, programming, interfaces, the web (and more) by smart, creative people who have interests similar to my own. If there’s an occasional “hypey” entry that I don’t feel like reading, I think “good for them,” and I move to the next. (And to the extent that the readers’ comments get over-excited about their products - that’s not the fault of the authors.)

    I evangelize 37signals all the time. The ideas and aesthetic of 37signals have inspired me to improve my work by challenging some deeply rooted assumptions that I didn’t even realize I was making. I’m thankful to them for that, even if they were just passing along ideas from XP and Agile Development - these ideas weren’t reaching me before, and now they are. Partly that’s timing, but it also helps that the 37signals team is excellent at communicating these concepts and building savvy applications that show off the ideas that they talk so much about. Just because I don’t have a small business to run or a wedding to plan doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the thinking that went into Basecamp (or, for that matter, Blinksale). I don’t have a poster of JF over my bed or anything, but I’m definitely honored to draw inspiration from the model that 37signals espouses.

    By Jameson on August 10, 2005 7:32 pm

41. I haven’t yet had time to read through all of the comments, but I’d like to not that, at least in the past, the 37signals web site has been somewhat confusing as far as UI goes. Some links that you would expect to be at the top of the page on every page are definitely not. And why does everything disappear when you go to SvN? That doesn’t make any sense. Their site is getting busy as well. It’s a lot of marketing for a small area, in my very humble opinion. Other than that they appear to be doing well, and I’m not, so who am I to say? :)

    By Joe Clay on August 10, 2005 8:02 pm

42. Fucking deadly sins everywhere.

    But so much ENVY can be found here its absurd.

    This is not a fruitful conversation. It’s just tired.

    Go do something and stop whining about those who have done it better than you.

    This sheep pays 37S exactly $0/month, but has four unique users (across the three apps.) I pay much more to other companies monthly (web hosting, business banking, etc.) and receive far less.

    If I was JF, I’d just tell you to fuck off and be done with it (that’s what the old DHH would have done,) but alas, they are TOO GOOD to you, instead, partaking in your nonsensical conversation.

    By Fugoff on August 10, 2005 9:24 pm

43. Sorry if this appears twice …

    I’ve been a basecamp customer since late last year, started off on the highest priced plan at the time and then moved to the $49 plan after the price increases. I’ve also been working with basecamp for about 2 months. Both are great products and like Scrivs, I’ve got a lot of respect for the company. However I strongly agree with this article and most of the commenters. The hype, especially on blogs like everything basecamp (no longer subscribed), is getting ridiculous. Even if someone really did write to you with the comment “Basecamp will you marry me?” posting that up on the blog is going too far.

    There are two areas where the signals didn’t “sweat the details” and it left a bit of a sour taste.

    1. I bought their book “Defensive design for the web” which on page 92 (Chapter 5, Guideline 16) has the suggestion:

    Offer customized “Page Not Found” error pages

    It then goes on to offer tips about what you should have in your 404 pages.

    Want to see an example? http://backpackit.com/crappy404page

    2. Basecamp doesn’t use form labels for checkboxes. For a company that prides itself on usability this is pretty poor. Especially when you use a bunch of apps that do use form labels for checkboxes, you start getting used to that behavior, and then you switch windows to basecamp (the one with super-hyped usability and design) and you’ve got to remember to put your mouse right over those little boxes.

    What’s more annoying is that I emailed them about both these issues and got radio silence. In my opinion “Thanks dude we’ll look into it for the next version” is worth 20 “I want basecamp to have my children” type posts.

    By Myles on August 11, 2005 3:17 am

44. oops. Above comment should say “Ive been working with rails for about two months”

    By Myles on August 11, 2005 8:17 am

45. Thanks Myles. Which address did you send your support emails to? I make sure to respond to every one within a few hours. I’m sorry you didn’t get a response.

    We’ll have that 404 page fixed today, thanks for pointing that out.

    There’s always something to pick on. Should we use labels for checkboxes? Yup. And when we have some spare time we’ll fix that up. Anyone with a critical eye can slam any product for “poor usability” — I’ve got about 10 beefs with iTunes and about 100 with OS X, but nothing is perfect. Developers have to prioritize, and sometimes labels fall to the bottom of the list when there are more important usability issues to deal with.

    Thanks again for the feedback.

    By Jason Fried on August 11, 2005 8:55 am

46. I think of 37signals as a sort of micro-techno-starbucks in the sense that they are successfully re-introducing an existing commodity in such a new and interesting way that it not only garners a lot of attention for themselves but, ultimately, paves the way for other, independent entrepreneurs. I mean, it’s not like starbucks invented coffee; they just made it taste good enough and created a fresh culture around it that convinced people to plunk down 2 bucks for a cup of joe instead of 1.

    Similarly, 37signals has transformed how folks think about, relate to and develop web applications. It does not matter whether they didn’t invent this or that, what matters is that they are the ones communicating key concepts most effectively. That the mainstream media is beginning to pay attention is a clear sign that the futures holds more, not less, of their style & methodology.

    Look, I’m no huge fan of 37s (I don’t use any of their applications, I cringe at words like “AJAXian” and I didn’t even know what basecamp was until after I whipped up something ostensibly similar — and on my own PHP-based framework, no less), but this post is weak because it offers only one significant criticism (the lack of interoperability) while the remainder of it reads as both gossipy and trite.

    By R. Marie Cox on August 11, 2005 9:22 am

47. I personally know JF and I can honestly say that his ego is huge!

    By Mr. Non-Perfect on August 11, 2005 12:39 pm

48. Mr. Perfect, reveal yourself.

    By Jason Fried on August 11, 2005 12:51 pm

49. i think the fact that we’re having this discussion illustrates the fact that 37 is doing remarkable things. people are getting passionate about it.

    By ward andrews on August 11, 2005 1:15 pm

50. Very astute, R. Marie.

    Part of the reason I have such strong feelings about the hype cloud is that we now have this totem pole of small-is-beautiful product development practices, while the ideas have been circulating broadly for many years, in many circles through many disciplines. Believing 37s to be on the leading edge of a revolution belittles the less-glamorous work of many, many others.

    (Yes, I’m that guy from your high school who disliked Nine Inch Nails when they hit the big-time in ‘93, despite being a huge fan of Pretty Hate Machine)

    By Michal Migurski on August 11, 2005 1:57 pm

51. @Maria

    “I think of 37signals as a sort of micro-techno-starbucks”

    I was thinking the same thing.

    By Mark Priestap on August 11, 2005 2:24 pm

52. Yes, there’s lots of 37S hype these days, but where there’s smoke, there’s flame.

    * Their software is good.

    * While they didn’t invent ‘web services for small businesses’ they sure are making a go of it and are sharing that example publicly. This is a real service for other companies that want to emulate their success. They’re being open.

    * Rails is a HUGE gift to the community. They could have kept that under wraps and simply used it as long-term competitive advantage. Instead they’re sharing it, which _costs_ them time. Time spent making rails better for *you* is time away from building/improving apps.

    * Nobody is perfect. If you were in their shoes, do you think you could have built all this stuff, developed and shared rails, hosted conferences, handled the press and not made some mistakes?

    Cut ‘em a little slack guys! :)

    By Aaron Dragushan on August 11, 2005 4:18 pm

53. Woohoo! I completely agree with a lot of this and I’m glad to see others out there. 37s is doing some great things, more in the black on the goodness ledger than not but it does feel hype-heavy. My biggest grip that I’m always going off about is their “Getting Real” process which is nothing more than agile development which many many developers have been doing for years. Some great products but I stopped making 37s part of daily blog reading because it was just so much stroke.

    By Shawn Oster on August 11, 2005 6:12 pm

54. Jason, I sent those emails to jason@37signals.com which is the email you used to respond to me on another support request, in that case you were very promt and the problem was fixed very quickly.

    Apologies if my last comment seemed like I was just bashing you guys. 99.9% of the stuff you guys do is awesome. This is just the first time I’ve seen anyone bring up the 0.1% and I wanted to chime in with some of my own experiences.

    Rails rocks. Thanks :)

    By Myles on August 11, 2005 8:57 pm

55. Myles, you should send support requests to support at backpackit.com or support at basecamphq.com. My personal email address has very strict spam filtering.

    By Jason Fried on August 11, 2005 11:11 pm

56. Wow, Scrivs — call you the puppet master! And props to JF for stepping in and talking about this head on.

    I’m not going to comment on all the hype, etc. I use Backpack and feel it’s worth what I pay. I’ve used Basecamp and consider it a lifesaver–seriously–some people might not get it, but if you’ve ever tried Project, or SiteSpring, or countless other Web PM programs, you’ll know why Basecamp really is a great product….

    By Keith on August 12, 2005 12:27 am

57. “props to JF for stepping in and talking about this head on.”

    Are you shitting me? Hype is all this guy has got. He HAS to be here to protect it.

    By Mrs Chuck Norris on August 12, 2005 12:50 am

58. I also think that 37 Signals seems mighty impressed with itself. Perhaps it’s just its adolescent ego. No doubt the group has done some great work but their self-aggrandisement is starting to wear thin.

    By Lisa L. on August 12, 2005 1:52 am

59. I know for me it boils down to two issues:

    I hate to see people ‘brainwashed’ because someone shouts loud enough that
    this is right/best. Sometimes I miss out on what’s best because I avoid
    overhyped things like the plague so I can still think straight (I’m a child
    of the 21st
    century, I see vapour-ware everywhere, from my letting agency that claims
    to offer customer service to the university claiming they’re organised. Hah!)
    I’m
    jealous. I wish I could generate hype and success like that :-)

    37Signals have done good work, but please don’t hold them up up as examples
    of perfect UI design. There’s flaws in them, and I’m sure I’m not the only
    one to spot them (and that they’d admit to them).
    I’m sure Rails is brilliant, but the hype and attacking others in their weblog
    put me off. If that’s the attitude… then it sounds like an 18 year old with
    no experience who believes he must be best because he’s new and cool oh-so-hot.
    Cut the crap and get the respect of developers (who from my experience are
    immune to hype).
    In fact that may be the crunch point: there are two audiences, each of which
    responds differently. One takes and flies with the hype, the other scuttles
    round the edge and examines it from a distance - and if the product is obscured
    by hype, moves on.
    A generalisation, but I do see both reactions, and not just from me!
    [Scrivs: some guide on whether any text-formatting is available in the comments
    would be good]

    By Peter Bowyer on August 12, 2005 5:30 am

60. No one uses their real names because Sinyster Darklyght From Beyond the Seventh Wall is way more interesting than Fred Smith in Accounting.

    As for emails - spam. Pure and simple.

    By Sinyster Darkyght, etc. on August 12, 2005 7:07 am

61. This is not leading anywhere is it? A win-win situation for both Scrivs (read 9rules) and 37.

    Ingenious.

    By Prabhath Sirisena on August 12, 2005 7:09 am

62. “I’m jealous. I wish I could generate hype and success like that :-)”

    I think that’s what most people are feeling, and half of the reason why people are bashing 37signals.

    By Zach Blume on August 12, 2005 10:34 am

63. Boo. You’re boring and you bring up pointless criticism. Please, what is this ego calling-out all about! You all are ego-filled techies. Every application you guys create gets bestowed upon it Christ-like importance.

    Sob, sob, sob you guys don’t have the coverage, or buzz or what-ever-the-hell-you-call it. Maybe if you weren’t so busy calling 37Signals’s customers “idiots”, “followers”, etc. you might actually be able to sell an application to the market that moves you out of your Mom’s basement. Blah.

    By Tim on August 12, 2005 5:28 pm

64. I agree with an earlier post by Mark (#25) that a more general - and possibly less conspicuously traffic-generating - post would be more beneficial to the general criticism of hype in web apps.

    I use Basecamp because I love IT, not 37signals (although they do seem like pretty good blokes). I can’t understand the criticism of their use of customer testimonials, because I would do the same if I received such amazing approval from my users (and probably a lot less tactfully). Yes, they hype their product - but on their own pages! How is that even worthy of criticism?

    Jason replied to a support email I sent a few weeks ago - personally - within an hour of me sending it. That kind of customer support is unparalleled, in my view, particularly when there are (I would imagine) a large portion of people who are using Basecamp on the free plan (like I am).

    Actions [read: 37signal products] continue to speak louder than words [read: this pointless discussion], but I’ll shout quite happily about Basecamp.

    By john on August 15, 2005 10:59 am

65. I have to admit… I miss Singlefile. I was so delighted with it, I sent off a long email to 37signals after I signed up for the product and offered up my praise and suggestions. I was incredibly impressed with the personal response I got back directly from Jason and his willingness to even listen to some of my ideas. (Such was my enthusiasm, I was quoted in their customer feedback page.) I was sad to see Singlefile go as 37signals focused on their other products. I would have loved to throw more money their way to keep that product alive.

    Frankly, it was one of the most graceful applications I’ve used, and the transition to similar yet clunky and unattractive software (Readerware) has not been a pleasure.

    I very much respect the work that 37signals does. They may not always offer the most robust of applications, but they do offer the most user-friendly with an ability to anticipate the needs of their users before their users even realize what they need. I think that they are not unlike the Google of their genre of products. And that isn’t always an easy position to be in.

    By Alanna on August 16, 2005 4:18 pm

66. Thanks Paul for opening this conversation.What is worst about the SvN weblog is not even the posts but the comments. As a group, they are one of the worst bunch of bootlickers I’ve ever seen. Jason Fried spends his life surrounded by them and has trouble living outside of this rarefied environment these days.He has taken to immediately banning anyone who posts critically on SvN.What’s far worse than the blog though is that 37Signals is not trustworthy as a company.Example 1Here’s one man’s horror story. Six month’s harassment to get his data back:
    

    One pretty severe warning: when you’re using any of 37signals’ products such as Basecamp, make sure you backup your data thoroughly and often, in case the site has a bug or goes away. As a user of one of 37signals’ previous products, Singlefile, I had over 3000 book records in their database. At a certain point, their export function ceased working for me. I alerted Jason to the issue, but the problem wasn’t fixed. Then they took down the site two months later — so no data.From an outside perspective (they have refused to address the issue, nor followed through on their promise to get me a copy of my data, over 6 months after the issue first occured), it looked like the product simply didn’t scale to this number of records. Their customer service response has been pretty dire. This was the last message I received from Jason, back in early March:“At this time exporting a single person’s data for a service that is no longer available, was run for free over the past year, and isn’t even on a machine that can facilitate the export is simply not at the top of our list.”Which you might imagine was rather annoying, since the export of the data had already been requested well before the site was shut down, and was only necessary because of a bug they didn’t fix. It’s also not a stellar example of responsive customer service and the transparency they mention on their Basecamp Manifesto.There’s a reason that you don’t usually make your evangelist your tech support person… and having one part-time programmer is not exactly reassuring.

    Example 2After a year of constant support from their early adopters and at a time of increasing margins (more customers, falling hosting/bandwidth prices), 37 Signals celebrates not with a rewards program (promised from the beginning but never delivered) for referrals but with a 25% to 100% price increase. Thanks. Not only that we are not notified about (unless we read their damned blog which as many above have noted is quite hard to stomach). First notification is when I get the increased bill.Example 3As the Singlefile user noted, 37 Signals sees fit to embody evangelism and tech support in a single entity Jason Fried. Jason pretends that this is to enable him to support the product better. No way. It’s because he is too cheap to pay somebody to do it (one does have to pay tech support people, not much, but something). As Myles notes, this results inunanswered emails.very curt and rude answers.Such as when I emailed to complain about being changed to a new price plan against my wishes and heard from Jason that a 25% price increase (in our case $60/year on top of the $228 we were sending without complaint - the same price as 2 to 3 nice shareware applications with permanent licenses) should be written off as just “an extra coffee or two a month”.After everything his early adopters did and have done for him, his derisive and indifferent attitude smacks not only arrogance but stupidity. The backlash is just beginning.One friendly word of advice, Jason. Get yourself a support department. You’re not qualified to do this work yourself (it requires both patience and courtesy) and you would save yourself a lot of trouble with users. You would also have a lot more time to make good on the unkept promises to users outlined above.

    By Alec on August 17, 2005 6:48 pm

67. What ever happened to the singlefile application??

    By Tom on August 27, 2005 9:07 am

68. Singlefile was discontinued after about 2 years. It started as an experiment (I built it to learn PHP) but it never really gained critical mass. We gave everyone their second year for free and then closed the doors with a 90-day advanced notice.

    By Jason Fried on August 28, 2005 5:58 pm

69. Thanks for answering. I am developing a similar application so it’s little worrying that it didn’t attact enough users.

    By Tom on August 31, 2005 1:49 pm

70. Hey now Jason Fried, you need to quit responding… you are starting to look hostile! It’s called backlash, and it’s what you get when you are successful and hyped. It’s a comlement. Take the real criticism and fix those aspects, ignore the rest. You know 37 signals is ridiculously overhyped and you should enjoy it while it lasts, because it won’t. Quick, sell to yahoo for 20 mil!

    By christina on September 13, 2005 11:09 am

71. MY GOD who cares! You’re all starting to sound like old Italian wash-women!!!

    By mike on September 13, 2005 1:12 pm

72. You know what Paul, I just believe these guys (37s).

    I can see what you meen by the “over-hype” but I take it like this: Their great products were on the right place in the right time which resulted in huge success for them. Well deserved. And I suppose one can not save himself from getting “over-dosed with adrenalin” when hit by such a sudden change in his life.

    So I perceive them as the true guys, who are commited the thier way, and are just “high” (like after a joint) so they are doing and feeling everything too much… Hope you get what I mean.

    Never the less, I like them, read thier blog and do not feel like they are bombarding me too much.

    By Jan Korbel on September 17, 2005 5:56 am

73. Hey Jason, if you’re still around, http://backpackit.com/crappy404page still has a crappy 404 page. If that is another thing that you purposefully made a low priority (though you did specifically say you’d get it fixed), that’s fine, your call… just wanted to remind you.

    As for the original topic, I like and use 37s apps but lately the metaphorical shark comes to mind in relation to them.

    What about this though, perhaps it is really that they are going too mainstream for some of us? Like it won’t hurt them in the pocketbook, they are just losing the respect of their core audience in the process of gaining the attention of a much bigger audience? Like how the local band is cool, and when they first get on MTV it is neat and you are proud to know them, but then when they are in a GAP commercial you are embarrassed and they suck, even though they are playing the exact same song that you loved when they played at open mike? Damn sellouts! :)

    Or maybe I’ve just spent too much time visciously envying their success and attention and right-place-right-time luck.

    Or maybe I really just wish they’d go back to doing design consulting so I could hire them.

    By Ben on September 17, 2005 6:02 am

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