37signals is a privately held
web application company based in Chicago, Illinois. The firm was co-founded in 1999 by Jason Fried, Carlos Segura, and Ernest Kim as a
web design company. Segura left in 2000 and Kim left in 2003, leaving Fried as the only remaining founder.
Since mid-2004, the company's focus has shifted from web design to web application development. Its first commercial application was Basecamp; this was followed by Backpack, Campfire, and Highrise, all of which follow the freemium business model. It maintains two freeware web applications, Ta-Da List and Writeboard, which are described below. The open source web application framework Ruby on Rails was initially created for internal use at 37signals, before being publicly released in 2004.
The company is named for the 37 radio telescope signals identified by astronomer Paul Horowitz as potential messages from extraterrestrial intelligence.
History
The company's initial focus was on website redesign, including work for
Panera Bread and
Shopping.com. The
Meetup.com website was designed by 37signals. In 2000, it created the satirical website eNormicom, which was themed around the
dot-com era. In 2003, the company launched
37express, a web design service, whereby a single web page would be redesigned for a set fee in one week.
Work on the company's first product, the project management application Basecamp, 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.
On July 20, 2006, the company announced that Jeff Bezos had acquired a minority stake through his personal investment company, Bezos Expeditions.
Signal vs. Noise
The company maintains a
blog, Signal vs. Noise, which was launched in 1999. Content since February 2005 is archived, and the blog is powered by a custom-built blogging tool, having formerly used
Movable Type. The blog generates revenue from
advertising.
Ruby on Rails
Ruby on Rails is a free
web application framework created by
David Heinemeier Hansson, one of the 37signals programmers. It was originally used to make 37signals' first product,
Basecamp, and was since extracted and released as
open source in 2004, as well as being the framework that 37signals use to make their web applications.
Often shortened to "Rails" or "RoR", it is programmed in the
Ruby programming language.
The official Ruby on Rails website states that it is "sponsored by 37signals".
The development of Ruby on Rails is now managed by the Rails Core Team, with Hansson still contributing.
Books
Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points, New Riders Press, 2004 ISBN 0-7357-1410-X
Getting Real, self-published e-book, 2006
REWORK, 2010, ISBN 978-0-307-46374-6
Products
, 37signals has created four commercial web-based applications and two free web-based applications.
===Backpack===
Backpack is a web-based personal information manager and intranet for small business. The application has two main functions: user-created pages (which can include text, images, and files) and an iCalendar format calendar.
Features of the user-created pages include to-do lists, inline photo galleries, notes and file attachments, and page sharing.
Features of the calendar include support for iCalendar, email/SMS reminders, color-coding of calendars, and iCalendar sharing.
Basecamp
Basecamp is 37signals' first product, a
web-based project management tool launched in 2004. The
Ruby on Rails framework was extracted from the Basecamp project.
Basecamp primary features are to-do lists, milestone management, forum-like messaging, file sharing, and time tracking.
An API exists for Basecamp, allowing interaction with other web and desktop applications; an example of this is the creation of desktop widgets.
Campfire
Campfire is a business-oriented
online chat service, launched on February 16, 2006.
The application uses
Ajax technology for real time communication, and supports optional
128-bit SSL encryption.
To use the application, users must either create a new
chat room or be invited to one. Unless a chat room is specifically chosen to be "off the record", browsable transcripts of chats and uploaded files are stored for future reference. Images that are uploaded in the
GIF,
PNG, or
JPEG formats are represented as thumbnails in the chat room.
Highrise
Highrise (originally publicized as "Sunrise", a name which was replaced due to legal issues regarding its
trademark status) is a "shared contact management" web application which supports basic
CRM tasks. The application was launched publicly on March 20, 2007.
The application centers around person and company pages, which collate information such as images, notes, and contact detail. "Cases", which are pages/categories within which related notes, images, and people can be kept.
The application supports "drop-boxes", whereby a user can email a message to be imported into the account. It also permits importing data from vCards, Microsoft Outlook, ACT!, and Basecamp accounts.
Ta-Da List
Ta-Da List is a
freeware to-do list application launched in January 2005.
The application requires account creation, after which to-do lists can be created and edited. It allows the tracking of list modifications via
RSS feeds.
Lists can be shared either publicly, through a unique
URI, or privately as
password protected lists. The functionality of the application is based on the lists created for
Basecamp and
Backpack.
Writeboard
Writeboard is a free,
collaborative, non-
real time text editor, which allows creation password-protected web-based text documents. As in
Ta-Da List, changes can be monitored via RSS feeds.
Writeboard supports Diff, a feature which compares different versions of a single documents, and allows basic text formatting through Textile, a WYSIWYM markup language. Writeboards can be linked with Basecamp and Backpack accounts.
Services
Job Board
37signals operates an
employment website known as the
37signals Job Board. In October 2006, the company launched the
37signals Gig Board for one-off jobs; this website had fewer postings and was disestablished in February 2009. The company is a founding member of The Deck, a small online advertising network with 47 members (), on which it advertises its products.
Sortfolio
On October 21, 2009, 37signals launched
Haystack (later renamed
Sortfolio), a visual directory of web designers. The application allows clients to favorite firms they like and review them all on one page (that is also printable and sharable). There is no charge for basic listings but a
Pro option priced at $99/month. On May 4, 2011, the company announced it's intentions to sell Sortfolio, noting it brought between $17,000 and $20,000 in monthly revenue with 195 paying customers.
See also
Ruby on Rails
List of applications with iCalendar support
References
External links
37signals
Dan Benjamin's The Pipeline: Jason Fried Interview
Small is Essential Time, May 17, 2007
The Brash Boys at 37signals Will Tell You: Keep it Simple, Stupid Wired
37signals: Programming At Warp Speed ''Bloomberg Businessweek
DesignChat with Jason Fried
Category:Web design companies
Category:Web 2.0
Category:Design companies of the United States
Category:Internet companies of the United States
Category:Privately held companies based in Illinois
Category:Companies based in Chicago, Illinois
Category:Companies established in 1999
