Basecamp takes a fresh, novel approach to project collaboration. Projects don't fail from a lack of charts, graphs, stats, or reports, they fail from a lack of clear communication. Basecamp solves this problem by providing tools tailored to improve the communication between people working together on a project.
Jason Fried, 37Signals co-founder, exactly knows how to create beautiful systems. Basecamp users and Ruby on Rails developers know this. Recently he published the video with his vision of how to create a beautiful workspace (on the example of 37Signals) and how online tools can help. Jason started with the fact that in most companies collaboration is organized absolutely wrong. It's based on the constant interruptions. Employee just turns on the computer, and the interruptions begin: instant messages, email notifications, phone calls and of course, co-workers that come and ask something. No one can work productively in such environment. And, often collaboration software (especially messengers and microblogs) doesn't help to mute this noise, but increase it.
37Signals, the developer of online project management service Basecamp, according to the recent investment round, has become the most expensive company in the Internet services market. The group of investors, led by Yardstick Capital and Institutionalized Venture Partners purchased 0.000000001% of the company for $1. So, the potential 37Signals' market price has increased to about $100 billions. This was officially announced in the company blog. During the company-wide meeting, dedicated to this event, Jason Fried (37Signals founder), announced, that all SaaS applications, developed by 37Signals, including Basecamp, will become free in order to attract more users and to reach the estimated userbase already in 2013.