March 2 nd
Today we’re launching a new concept called Writecamp.
Writecamp turns your Basecamp Writeboards into a powerful content management system for normally static websites.
On this blog we’ll write all about the ups and downs of developing a web app and launching a startup. We hope you’ll come along for the ride.
THE IDEA
The idea came about purely by accident. We had been using Basecamp to organise a client’s site content. This turned out to be a long and drawn out process, so we figured the easiest thing would be to invite the client into Basecamp and let them edit the content themselves.
This turned out to be a great success. The client could use the Writeboards without any issues and quickly wrote up the rest of the site content.
Then came a surprise we had not expected.
The client was complaining that their changes in the Writeboard wasn’t showing up in their website!
We explained to them that this wasn’t possible and that it wasn’t how Writeboards were intended to be used. Disappointed, the client accepted the situation.
But then we thought, wait a minute! Why DON’T Writeboards work like this? A Writeboard is one of the easiest ways to write content for anything, so why not for a web page? Our clients are already familiar with Basecamp, so they won’t have to learn how to use a stand-alone CMS.
BINGO
Here was a problem that could be solved relatively easily, that would benefit all our clients, and likely benefit the clients of other Basecamp users too.
After a quick brainstorming session, we went about coding a prototype which I’ll write about in detail in another post.
We’re hoping that Writecamp will be useful to all web designers out there looking for a CMS that doesn’t suck and is simple enough so that non geeks can actually use it.
If you’re a Basecamp user AND a web designer then stick around, this could be right up your street. We’ll post regular updates here on this blog and for all the smaller updates in between you’ll find us on Twitter (@writecamp). If you’d like to register for an invite (when the time comes) you can do that too.
I’m interested to hear from anyone who has an opinion on this concept, so please leave a comment below or mail us hello@writecamp.com.
Here we go!