ReadWriteWeb

Future Simple's PipeJump is attempting to pry its way into the crowded CRM market space, and the latest enhancements to its PipeJump sales tracking app may prove to be the right moves. The service, which aims for the lower end customer, has been signing up 250 accounts per month and today released version 3.5 that encapsulate several features. The service has been available for several years.

37Signals, the company behind Backpack, Basecamp and Campfire, announced this morning that it was putting Sortfolio, its visual directory of Web designers, on the auction room floor.

Sortfolio has been around since 2009 as a part of the 37Signals offerings - and according to the team there, it's been doing quite well - but it's time for it to move on so it can "get the attention that it deserves."

37 Signals just announced Pow, a configuration-free, OSX version of the Ruby Web server interface Rack. Pow makes it easy for developers to install Ruby applications on their local machines without editing Apache configurations or installing gems. Pow can be installed or updated simply by curling a script.

Pow also eliminates the need to edit /etc/hosts to run Rack apps. Instead, apps can just be symlinked it into ~/.pow.

We frequently write about enterprise mobility and how it's enabling remote work. But we don't spend much time on the implications of mobile technology on the personal lives of workers. Reading Ben Kepes' recent essay on the subject, I had a thought: should enterprise software start tracking workers time and locking them out if they work too much?

Small business software firm 37Signals has created a proof-of-concept whiteboard as an iPad web app and made it available for free to anyone. It's called Chalk and is available at chalk.37signals.com. It's really simple but quite handy. I just added it to my iPad's home screen and I look forward to using it.

There's some HTML5 and some advanced CSS in the app. There are more powerful alternatives available online, but if you don't already use one of them - why not give this one a try? Check out the screencast demo below.

Basecamp is experimenting with its pricing structure, according to David Heinemeier Hanson of 37signals, the company that created the ever-popular online collaboration app.

Some bloggers and Twitter users noticed yesterday that Basecamp quietly increased its cheapest subscription option from $24 to $49 per month, a move that was criticized by some as as being unfair to small business customers. All other price levels remain unchanged.

In an email to staff yesterday, new Ning CEO Jason Rosenthal wrote that "When I became CEO 30 days ago, I told you I would take a hard look at our business. This process has brought real clarity to what's working, what's not, and what we need to do now to make Ning a big success." With that, he announced Ning would be abandoning its longstanding business model and discontinuing non-paying sites on its network. In light of this, is it time to reevaluate and reign in some of the excitement about the freemium model for startups?

This week we've got a book hot off the presses for your weekly dose of entrepreneurial reading as 37signals founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson are back with their second book. Released earlier this month, Rework, a no-nonsense rethinking of how to successfully start and run a business, is the second book from Fried and Heinemeier who earlier authored Getting Real: The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application.

If you ever thought startup life would be about champagne toasts and million dollar term sheets then you need to get back in your time machine and set the dial for the nineties. If there's one thing we learned in the latter half of this decade, it's discipline. To say that it was a tough year, would be an understatement. But those of us who stayed lean will be back for 2010. While the below concepts weren't invented this year, they certainly hit their stride in 2009.

Here at ReadWriteWeb we spend a lot of time reading the blogs of companies we write about (send yours to tips@readwriteweb.com) and we've found that some of them are just plain fun. An interesting company blog can be a great way to draw in new people through relevant content of general interest - and some of them will stay to check out the service you provide.

Some companies just blog about updates to their own technology and that's good for existing users to see. Others are fun to read whether you're a user or not. Here are some of the company blogs we recommend reading for a good time.