I notice the new version is running on basecamp.com. The old version is at basecamphq.com and 37signals always made a point about the domain not mattering as much as the product name. I imagine there's a follow-up to that saying that if your product becomes successful there's nothing wrong with going and grabbing the pure domain (thinking Dropbox, Instagram and others. Or basically the opposite of Color.)
"Project name is bigger than domains" is a part of lie part of true: Product and it's name important but if you can't get the domain just be arrogant and say to people it doesn't matter. But because you know the importance of the domain name , when you have money and chance get the domain and rule the world.
We purchased the domain from the previous owner a few months ago. We wanted to use it to launch the new Basecamp since the Classic version used basecamphq.com. We wanted to keep the URLs separate so this seemed as good a time as any to make it happen.
That was the first thing that caught my eye too. I would tend to agree with the assessment that a perfect domain name is negligible compared to having a successful product offering. You can take that too far, but for the most part a domain name doesn't matter all that much. It's a stupid investment for a struggling entrepreneur to spend thousands of dollars for a new domain. I think another significant reason they decided to go ahead and purchase the domain now, is that it was part of a larger effort to rebrand the product.
"Your Basecamp Classic URL (which looks like yoursubdomain.basecamphq.com) stays the same. New Basecamp accounts are hosted on the basecamp.com domain. New Basecamp accounts don't have subdomains, so all accounts are at basecamp.com."
It looks like they're gradually simplifying. They originally launched with a range of domains you could choose from: projectpath.com, clientsection.com, grouphub.com, etc. with a subdomain. Then it went to subdomains on basecamphq.com, and now just basecamp.com with no subdomains.
That's exactly what happened. It was actually confusing for people since different people on the same project were referring to Basecamp with different names. That's one of the reasons we migrated everyone to basecamphq.com and now, basecamp.com on the new accounts.
