Backpack has always allowed you to share pages via email, but the person on the receiving end had to have a Backpack account before they could view the page. We were never really happy about how that worked. We finally did something about it. Big thanks to Jeremy for making this happen.
Now you can share Backpack pages with anyone in the world via email — even if they don’t have a Backpack account. They don’t even need to know what Backpack is.
It’s the quickest and best way we know to share a functional web page or informational page with someone (or some people). Share to-dos, photos, notes, whatever. Pages you share via email are fully functional. Multiple people can collaborate on the page together by adding new list items, checking them off, adding a note, a file, a photo, etc.
And if they do decide to sign up for Backpack, they page will be pulled right into their account as a shared page. It’s all automatic.
We hope you find this enhancement useful. If you don’t already have a Backpack account, sign up for one today.
Jason Fried wrote this on Jul 22 2008 There are 17 comments.
Joey 22 Jul 08
Really great idea. Is there any way to make the page read-only?
Dennis Frank 22 Jul 08
Yes! Great! Waiting for something like this for years. Thank you so much!
I like the public sharing feature too. But only if the page does not appear as a link on a public page (like the former shuffle page). Can I use it without fearing the shuffle page comes back?
JF 22 Jul 08
Dennis: Shuffle is dead, but your public page could still be indexed by a search engine so tread carefully if you really don’t want it to be public. Public definitely means public.
Anonymous Coward 22 Jul 08
JF: It’s good to hear that. The page is public if you know the URL . I would never put sensitive data on it.
Richard Allum 22 Jul 08
Great idea but 2 problems: 1. The invitation gets hit by Outlooks spam blocker 2. Invited users can see all my writeboards in the whole account and not just the ones linked to the shared page.
JF 22 Jul 08
Richard: We’re checking into that Writeboard situation right now.
Keith 22 Jul 08
I love it!
I have need of this functionality beginning on the 29th so THANK YOU to everyone involved!!!
Paul Smith 22 Jul 08
How do you prevent people from signing up for a low cost account and just sharing pages with people? Do you just figure most people won’t go through the hassle to bypass paying more money? By the way, the feature does look quite nice.
DjD 22 Jul 08
This looks great guys. I’ve been working on some trip itinerary planning for when my parents visit in September… this will save a step in sharing it with them without needing to have them create a new account or make the page public. Brilliant!
Matt Brown 22 Jul 08
Guys, thanks a TON for this feature. I honestly have hardly ever shared any pages, because it’s always a bit much to ask people to sign-up for an account, just to collaborate. Going to share a lot more, going forward :)
Bob 22 Jul 08
Thank you 37Signals. This has been the one feature that has stopped me from really using Backpack in my consulting business.
You would really make my day if you had password protected public pages!
ep 23 Jul 08
I’m scared now because this seems very insecure. Please tell me that I’m wrong.
Ben Mills 23 Jul 08
This is a great feature. Not everyone can persuade their whole team to use Backpack. I’ve been wanting this for years.
Matt Radel 23 Jul 08
Great idea. I’m sure you guys will snag plenty of subscribers this way.
seaofclouds 23 Jul 08
finally! when working with clients, it’s sometimes difficult to convince them to sign up for another account – especially if they already use basecamp. this is a huge improvement.
Jason 23 Jul 08
If you invite more than one person are the URLs unique? Meaning if I invited Bob and Joe and Bob lost the link to the page, could he still ask Joe for the link and be able to log in with Bob’s email?
JF 23 Jul 08
Jason: The URLs are unique to each person’s email address. If someone forgets the URL you can just invite them again.
This discussion is closed.