Quick and Dirty Verdict

37signals, the company behind both old and new Basecamp, has done something extraordinary. They’ve reinvented their core product and, we think, drastically improved it. Compare that with, say, Microsoft’s frustrating iterations of Microsoft Word, and it’s quite the achievement. The new  Basecamp is innovative, a delight to use, and very, very promising. Well done.

For all its promise though, the new Basecamp isn’t business-ready yet, at least not for businesses of any size or scope. That seems a strange thing to say for a product that’s nearly 10 years old, but the new Basecamp very much feels, acts, and functions like young software. With no integrations, no API, no custom configuration, and a myriad of other shortcomings, it’s simply not a realistic option for most companies (yet).

Despite its drawbacks, the new Basecamp’s core innovations and awesome user-interface make it a product to watch. We are giving it a 75/100, a B on our rating scale. With the right integrations and enhancements, we’re confident we’ll be giving the new Basecamp our seal of approval in no time!

Functionality = 25 Points

Project management is the bread and butter of Basecamp, and the new Basecamp doesn’t disappoint. It includes (most of) the functions you’d expect, as well as some new ones; collaborate on projects via an ongoing discussion board (hello live chat functionality!), assign tasks to team members, and even “loop in” outsiders (they are simply responding to an email, but the reply gets auto-posted onto the discussion board).

Generally, the Discussions feature is pretty awesome; it aggregates all comments from across tasks, documents, and files into one stream of dialogue, which we haven’t seen before. No more sifting through tons of stuff to see where the action is.

Additionally, daily and weekly updates can get sent out to all project collaborators so that everyone (whether they are in the office or away on a business or personal trip) remains in the loop on new discussions, tasks completed, and upcoming initiatives in the project. This lends itself to mobile and remote access, the bread and butter of SaaS, and simplifies managing projects with large numbers of stakeholders.

On the downside, there’s no obvious way of linking projects together – what if two projects are related and you want them to always be connected? Also, there doesn’t appear to be any horizontal view of all your projects – no way to judge the state of everything with just one glance.

Better dashboarding and reporting – well, any reporting – would be great. Finally, the new version lacks many (most?) of the features that made the old Basecamp so popular, including time-tracking and templating. It’s a new, young product, this Basecamp: for better or worse, don’t expect the old one.

25/30 for functionality.

Usability = 19 Points

Basecamp’s new user interface is extremely simple, clean and FAST. We love it. It exudes freshness and, in defiant contrast with the old Basecamp, it’s a joy to use. Fantastic.

Everything is based off “sheets,” which work like sheets of paper: no more reloading new pages, just turn the page to where you’d like it. It’s intuitive and unlike anything we’ve seen. There’s also some slick keyboard shortcuts, something lacking in most SaaS products. ‘Enter’ automatically inserts a new task to a Task List, and you can pre-define other shortcuts for your personal navigation (i.e. ‘F1’ to go to homepage, ‘F2’ to go to project page). You can also double-click at the top or bottom-third of the page to quickly scroll there. Seems straightforward, but it makes other systems feel clunky.

Importantly, the Google Docs-like live updating functionality is a breakthrough in the project management space; no need to refresh the page to see your colleague’s activity, ‘cuz Basecamp updates the page’s content for you. Awesome.com/finally.