37signals

Just a quick note from a tipster that all of the services offered by 37signals are currently down. This includes: Basecamp, Backpack, Highrise, Campfire, Writeboard, Ta-da List, and their blogs. Adam from Mashable also notes the outage.

Update: 37signals services are back as of 12:10 CST

Here is their latest update as of 12:18PM Eastern Time:

UPDATE: The load balancer has been swapped and is currently being configured. We should be in the home stretch now. Again, we're incredibly sorry for this disruption. This is not how Fridays are supposed to be.

Ryan Singer, 37 Signals

• the company is known for making software that is easy to use, clear, that people like to use.
• you know when things reach critical mass when you get a lot of bullshit and jargon (referring to all the usability and design talk)
• we talk about clear, fast, easy, fun and good. usability does not mean it is good.
• for us, the interface is the product. Going to take a look at 3 areas that get focused on: screens, flow, language

Continues inside »

37signals has released (silently) their contact manager, Highrise. From what I can tell, 37signals has another winner. I will be doing a more in-depth review later this week. This is the first 37signals app to support OpenID.

Some of the information to check out about Highrise includes:

• Why should you use Highrise?
• Product Tour
• Chris Messina has many screenshots

If you have tried the app already, please report in on your thoughts about it. Is it the be-all, end-all for contact managers? Does 37signals now own the online contact management space? Thanks to Alex for the tip on launch.