• don't be evil

    Google takes down App Engine sample -- maybe because it was blatant ripoff

    To demonstrate its new Amazon S3-killer App Engine, Google built a sample application for the domain HuddleChat.com. The problem: "HuddleChat is just a feature-for-feature clone of 37signals's Campfire," writes Daring Fireball's John Gruber.
    The layout is the same, the tabs at the top of the screen are the same, the right-side sidebar listing participants and file uploads is the same. It even copies Campfire's trick of formatting a message as "code" if it contains literal newline characters.
    Google, citing "complaints from the developer community" has pulled the application from HuddleChat and posted an explanation instead. Gruber isn't satisfied. "Borrowing ideas is fair game, but copying an entire app is wrong," he writes. "It's creepy, in a Microsoft-of-the-'90s way, when it's a $150 billion company cloning an app from a 10-person company."

    10:40 AM on Wed Apr 9 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    756 views, 7 comments

    Latest by ryanmerket: Wait, so you mean the 37Signals app can easily be cloned by a couple Google devs? What does that say more »

  • idol worship

    Jason Fried, Web god

    A thousand people — 1 out of 8 attendees at the SXSW Interactive conference — have packed the room for programmer Jason Fried's talk. "He's like our Barack," a friend tells me. Instead of hope of change in politics, Fried, a cofounder of 37signals, offers hope of change in ... Web-based software? And for this, he's treated "like a demigod," as Seth Godin says in a recent Wired profile of Fried and his partner, David Heinemeier Hansson, right. (Photo by Jessica Wynne/Wired)

    1:58 PM on Sat Mar 8 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    908 views, 1 comment

    Latest by DeanMartin: Ah yes the new breed of techies that stay the hell away from Silicon Valley. Smart move. more »

  • followup

    37Signals blames Rackspace for outage

    In November of last year, one of Rackspace's data centers went offline for several hours. One of the companies affected was Chicago-based 37Signals, makers of fancy collaboration software used mostly by Valley companies (including this publication). This morning, 37Signals went offline again — we made a joke about Rackspace in our post, but it seems we were more prescient than we realized. 37Signals is blaming the outage on Rackspace. More »

    3:20 PM on Fri Jan 18 2008
    By Jordan Golson
    1,047 views, 2 comments

    Latest by Dweezil: Media Temple must be doing real well with new customers now. Between Dreamhost and Rackspace it is a perfect storm more »

  • breakdowns

    I'd tell my boss 37signals is down, but well, 37signals is down

    When Website-hoster Rackspace went down last fall, 37signals, the maker of Web-based collaboration software called the calamity a "perfect storm" and said it "will be using this situation as both a wake-up call and a learning experience." Well, somebody hit the snooze button. 37signals' suite of software services are down , leaving many of the Valley's startups — Valleywag included — without crucial collaboration as the day begins. Anybody up for making it a four-day weekend? Update: Darn. 37signals is back up. Do I still have to work?

    10:26 AM on Fri Jan 18 2008
    By Nicholas Carlson
    499 views, 1 comment

    Latest by Ted Dziuba: software as a service is the wave of the future. more »

  • followup

    Rackspace customers apologize for the downtime

    There are a lot of posts popping up from various Rackspace customers apologizing to their customers and readers for the Web host's downtime caused by an errant truck. Here is a selection:

    37signals

    Will be using this situation as both a wake-up call and a learning experience. While our systems are engineered to chug through major failure, this "perfect storm" chain of events beat both our set-up and our data center's sophisticated back-up systems. We will work hard to further diversify our systems in order to make an future downtime event like this even more rare.
    More »

    9:59 PM on Mon Nov 12 2007
    By Jordan Golson
    862 views, 2 comments

    Latest by parsnip2: Just want to corroborate what Laughing Squid said. I've been using rackspace for years and the bottom line is: they more »

  • breakdowns

    Truck driver in Texas kills all the websites you really use

    Remember the power mishap in July that brought down 365 Main, the San Francisco datacenter? A similar incident took place today at the Dallas datacenter of Rackspace, a San Antonio, Texas-based firm which serves several local Web outfits. Unlike the July outage, which killed all the websites we waste time with — LiveJournal, Craigslist, and so on — this one took out some sites which really mattered. Laughing Squid, Scott Beale's popular Web-hosting company, went down, taking a long list of customers with it, and 37signals, the maker of Web-based software, went out — a serious matter, since 37signals actually charges for using its software. So what exactly happened at Rackspace? More »

    7:12 PM on Mon Nov 12 2007
    By Jordan Golson
    45,872 views, 10 comments

    Latest by mbundy: "Real" datacenters touch two power grids. "Real" data centers have generator backup for their chillers. Heck, they even have more »

  • pownce

    "Pownce is competing with 37 Signals."

    Every new Web app gets compared to its predecessors. Pownce, the new messaging, sharing, and microblogging service from Digg founder Kevin Rose, is no good because it's just a poor man's Twitter, right? No, says startup expert Lane Becker, because Pownce isn't a messaging service — it's a productivity app, and it's competing with development boutique 37 Signals, the makers of Basecamp, Web-based software for group collaboration. To which 37 Signals says, "First of all, it's named after a cat treat." [Satisfaction: Pownce]

    12:08 PM on Mon Jul 9 2007
    By Nick Douglas
    526 views, Comment

  • 37signals

    DHH Needs His Space

    David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) creator of (Ruby on) Rails, railed today on 37signals.com about Linkedin not wanting to let go. More »

    2:53 PM on Mon Oct 23 2006
    By rabruzzo
    66 views, 1 comment

  • 37signals

    Noise noise noise: The 37signals cocky comparison betting pool

    "Get real," says 37Signals, but the famous Chicago design firm (designers of Meetup.com and creators of Basecamp and other web apps for businesses) is well-known for getting cocky on its corporate blog (a common faux pas of companies that think they're leading a movement). That's why an outside designer told me: More »

    9:49 AM on Tue Oct 10 2006
    By Nick Douglas
    81 views, 1 comment

    Latest by AviFlombaum: Well, they have yet to mention the YouTube deal, so I'd put $10 on YouTube. Oh and $1 on Jesus more »