37Signals' Backpack Getting Major Upgrade - Losing Focus?
This week, 37Signals started to preview the upcoming update to their Backpack service, which received its last major update in July. Though most of the new features seem very useful, they also seem to transform the app from a simple organizational tool into something else entirely. We can't help but wonder, considering the company wrote the book on keeping things simple in software development, has 37Signals lost focus with Backpack?
First, the updates. Monday, 37Signals CEO Jason Fried posted a preview of the new Backpack multiuser feature on the company's popular blog. Users have always been allowed to share Backpack pages and update them collaboratively -- a helpful feature that I have personally used to do things like manage a closed alpha test of a web app. The new multiuser feature takes that collaborative ability a step further by letting people create and link Backpage pages from a single common area.
Then yesterday, Fried announced two more new Backpack features: messages and newsroom. Messages is just what it sounds like, a message board where users of the same Backpack project can talk to one another. While newsroom is an activity feed for the Backpack. For any 37Signals fan these features should sound familiar because they already exist in one of the company's other popular applications, Basecamp. Basecamp is a great groupware tool that we rely on daily to manage our activities here at ReadWriteWeb. Backpack is starting to feeling a lot like Basecamp in a different skin.
With the addition of messages and an activity feed, both apps now sport more or less the exact same feature set. Both have lists, messages, files, and writeboards. The main difference is in the way those things are displayed and how much control users have over them. While Basecamp breaks everything out into separate pieces, Backpack combines them all on a single page in any configuration you want. Both approaches have their merits, but is it necessary that they exist as separate apps?
The implications of the upcoming changes haven't been lost on users. "Cool. So Backpack is the new Basecamp with a better calendar," wrote user Jim on the 37Signals blog. "Does anyone else now feel like Backpack will have too much," chimed in Tim. "With the announcement of these new features (which are great), the difference b/w Basecamp & Backpack is starting to blur."
When others echoed the sentiment, Fried responded. "Basecamp is your project management tool, Backpack is your company intranet," he wrote. "Basecamp and Backpack are entirely different products for different purposes. We use both for very different things."
But while Basecamp and Backpack still have some major differences when it comes to things like permissions handling, which drastically effects the use cases for each, they do now share most of the same features. That brings me back to the question about whether 37Signals has lost focus with the app.
When I saw Jason Fried speak at the BIF-3 Collaborative Innovation Summit last fall, Fried was asked by the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, how do you avoid feature creep? According to Fried, the key is the ability and willingness to say no. "You have to be a hard ass," he told Mossberg. So with Backpack going from a simple, single person organizational tool to what Fried now describes as a "company intranet," has 37Signals lost focus and succumbed to feature creep? Are they not eating their own dogfood, so to speak?
The answer is a firm maybe. When talking about feature selection in their popular book about their software development methods Getting Real, the company writes that when building a web application you should start with just the single core feature. Say "no" to all the others. But that doesn't mean to you always have to say no to new features. "Start off with a lean, smart app and let it gain traction," they write. "Then you can start to add to the solid foundation you've built."
That is more or less what they've done with Backpack. Started lean, let is get traction, then expanded it to where they thought it should go. But as an application Backpack has clearly evolved beyond a simple organizational tool to something that is starting to resemble their Basecamp application (which we, incidentally, already basically use as our intranet). Whether they've fallen prey to feature creep will really be measured by the response of their users. If people remain confused over the difference between Backpack and its cousin Basecamp, then the answer is yes, somewhere they stopped following their own advice and said "yes" to one too many feature that was better suited to one of their other applications. But if people embrace both apps as complimentary offerings, as Fried clearly hopes they will, then they've made the right decisions.
37Signals offers a range of applications, from simple, single-function apps like Ta-Da Lists (to-do lists), Writeboard (collaborative word processor), and Campfire (group chat) to more complicated apps like Basecamp (project management) and Highrise (group contact manager).
In the past, 37Signals has often integrated its simpler products into its more complicated offerings. Basecamp has Campfire chats, Writeboard shared writing spaces, and to-do lists clearly based on Ta-Da, for example. Along with their slow shift toward full OpenID support, this points to the potential for a modular, create-your-own app system from 37Signals, where users could pick and choose which of the company's applications to install. That's completely speculation on our part, but we really hope that's the direction 37Signals is headed.
What do you think? Has 37Signals lost focus with Backpack? Or do you still see differences distinct enough between Basecamp and Backpack that you could see yourself using both? Do you wish the functionality of both applications was merged into a single app? Let us know in the comments below.
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While inference made above is that this is a bad thing, I would argue that they have long been in need of 'losing focus.' Other competitors have come online that are just as easy to use (a '37 signals hallmark') but also have vastly expanded capabilities.
~david
I have to agree with this, I can see what they are doing and it makes sense but I would of rather seen some of the features from highrise contact management stuff than multi-user stuff.
As someone who used to develop intranets I can say most of the features in this are far to advanced for management to get their heads around. Most just want an internal website with a cms.
being a 1 man business if they could create a product where I can take my backpack account and add the milestone feature and some of the contact management stuff from sunrise then I would be happy.
I don't think we should take the 37signals "simpler is better" mantra so literally. They engineer and design some of the most usable, satisfying experiences on the web. I see the new features on Backpack as simply an evolution of how people use, or want to use, the product. (It's not "creep")
Are they loosing their focus? No. Basecamp is about communication. Backpack is about information. They are simply enabling people to collaboratively capture and organize information. The way I see it, 37signals is doing what they do best - solving complex problems with elegant solutions.
Are they losing focus: YES
Backpack is and always has been a tool for personal use.
Now 37signals is making Backpack a tool solely for business use.
From looking at their traffic, the bloom is off the 37signals rose and this loss of focus may be the reason. Also, bascamp now has strong competitors so maybe this is a way to deal with lost revenue there.
tv
I keep hearing people talk about Basecamp competitors. Who (other than activecollab) are these competitors?
I think they have come to the realization that Backpack will be more profitable as a business tool than as a personal organizer. Changing their target audience dramatically changes the focus of the app.
The two are on a converging path, here comes BackCamp.
@Bill
Unfortunately our startup, Clever Tools is not yet ready to launch, but we will be offering a similar, yet vastly different product than Basecamp. Josh did a Preview of it last year. Since then we have received funding and have refocused the service to be much better. Hopefully we will be done in a few months for beta.
To signup for the beta go to our website and signup. You can also contact me directly with any questions.
I disagree. These updates turn a personal 'wiki' with the 37s hallmarks of killer usability and simplicity into something that more than one person can use.
They're not adding loads of features to it, they're simply making it practical for more than one person to find it useful by:
Backpack is for managing specific projects with specific goals. Backpack is for gathering and refining and referring to general information that doesn't form part of a definable project.
Think of it this way: every organisation undertakes projects to make money, and can benefit by coordinating them through Basecamp. But at the same time, the act of being an organisation is a much looser project, involving organic growth, reflection, and information exchange to help it work out where it is, where it wants to be, and the best way for it to get there.
Instead of hacking this environment together through a Basecamp project, these Bacpack updates provide a forum for this to happen.
Bill,
Take a look at:
1. TeamWork Live (http://www.teamworklive.com)
2. Central Desktop (http://www.centraldesktop.com)
Jake
I had the same initial reaction but I think time will tell, let's see how it works once they release it and THEN decide :) Of course that wouldn't allow for an article with a headline like this one I suppose. Oh, the suspense!
The changes make sense. While it's good to avoid a lot of features, every application has to offer a minimum of usefulness.
I stopped using Backpack a long time ago but now I may take another look.
I would argue with "simpler is always better" mantra, so maybe they are in the right direction. Depends on what their users actually think :)
Why do you need several apps for for similar things. I think it's better to keep all your stuff in one place, his way it's error proof. Less chances you can forget something. I use Wrike for project management, productivity, HRM and CRM. It's a great simple solution. Well, at least me and my team think so.
37Signals' Getting Real philosophy is not about simple products. It's much more than that.
As a daily user of both Backpack and Basecamp, their decision to change Backpack from a personal wiki to a company wiki (or like Fried said, a company intranet), completely makes sense.
Right now, my firm uses Basecamp for intranet-like things: keeping documentation, notes about our clients, communication with clients and each other, etc. But Basecamp is for project management, and not all those things fall into distinct projects. So we hack things like have a project named "Documentation Repository" and another named "System Administration". Those aren't projects, they're topics.
We also don't have a shared calendaring system, which has lately been getting on my nerves.
These new Backpack features seem to address exactly those problems.
Hmm. I don't use Backpack because it is too simple, too basic for my needs. Perhaps with the new upgrade it is worth looking at again.
For those who are curious, the Backpack update is live.
Hmm I am using Backpack and it is pretty complete in my opinion. I just miss a few things:
- more/ unlimited users for each account type as it is in basecamp
- i don't need reminders as an extra thing, I just would like to add a reminder to EVERYTHING...lists, notes, pages
On the otherhand I would wish that Basecamp has EVERYTHING included which is in Backpackit.
Leave Backpackit as it is and make Basecamp as an extended Backpack would be great.
Christoph