We tried to use Basecamp for internal project scheduling stuff, and it fell down badly for us. I went through a period of thinking Basecamp kinda sucked. I've started using it for customer evals for our product, and it is shining for me.
When you have the problem of managing lots of short-term relationships with defined processes and lifecycles, where you need freeform comms throughout the relationship that multiple people on both sides of the engagement can keep track of, Basecamp just-works. I went looking for alternatives and, apart from the pricing, I don't see a better alternative.
I think a big problem with Basecamp (and to a lesser extent Highrise) is that the marketing appeal is broad but the business value is narrow, so they bring in customers who get turned off. But why would they care? It's easy to cancel service, and they're doing well with their core customers. It seems kind of silly to go through a lot of effort to make people happy that aren't your core customers, or to sacrifice a single marketing lead to avoid irritating the Hacker News Commenters of the world.
When you have the problem of managing lots of short-term relationships with defined processes and lifecycles, where you need freeform comms throughout the relationship that multiple people on both sides of the engagement can keep track of, Basecamp just-works. I went looking for alternatives and, apart from the pricing, I don't see a better alternative.
I think a big problem with Basecamp (and to a lesser extent Highrise) is that the marketing appeal is broad but the business value is narrow, so they bring in customers who get turned off. But why would they care? It's easy to cancel service, and they're doing well with their core customers. It seems kind of silly to go through a lot of effort to make people happy that aren't your core customers, or to sacrifice a single marketing lead to avoid irritating the Hacker News Commenters of the world.