Project management software maker Basecamp has launched a feature-packed hosted email service, called Hey — which they tout as taking aim at the traditional chaos and clutter of the email inbox.
https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/a
Hey includes a built in screener that asks users to confirm whether or not they want to receive email from a new address. Inbound emails a Hey user has consented to are then triaged into different trays — with a central “imbox” (“im” standing for important) containing only the comms the user specifies as important to them; while newsletters are intended to live a News Feed style tray, called The Feed, (where they’re automatically displayed partially opened for easy casual reading); and email receipts are stacked in a for-reference ‘Paper Trail’ inbox view.
Other notable features include baked in tracking pixel blocking (with Hey acting like a VPN and sharing its own IP address with trackers, rather than email senders learning yours when you open a mail with embedded trackers); a handy looking attachment library that lets you view all attachments you’ve ever received in one searchable place; and a ‘Reply Later’ feature that lets you tag emails you want to follow up on, teeing them up in a stack — clicking a ‘Focus & Reply’ button then displays all stacked emails in a single page so you can take a one-hit run at replying to everything you teed up earlier.
The software is the literal opposite of an MVP — with all sorts of organizational workflow style hacks baked in at launch, such as the ability to merge different email threads; rename email subjects; set up notifications for individual contacts; take clippings from within emails to save to a reference library; and attach your own sticky notes to keep further tabs on emails you may want to revisit or remember.
Some other salient points: Hey is not free (they’re offering a free 14 day trial but pricing thereafter is a flat $99 per year, billed in one go, for 100GB storage; NB: certain vanity email addresses may cost you more); Hey is not end-to-end encrypted (they make an up front promise that they’re not data mining your inbox but they do hold the keys to access your info); Hey does not support IMAP or POP, so Basecamp is giving the middle finger to standard email protocols — instead you’re tethered to using only Hey’s apps forever (hence they have apps for web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone, iPad, and Android right now); nor can you import email from another webmail service.
Asked by a Twitter user about the lack of support for IMAP, Basecamp CTO David Heinemeier Hansson confirmed it will never be supported, writing that: “Our changes to email requires the vertical integration we’ve done.”
Nope. Our changes to email required the vertical integration we’ve done. HEY will only ever work with its own apps.
— DHH (@dhh) June 16, 2020
While custom domains are not available at launch, Heinemeier Hansson noted they are coming “later this year”. Also on the slate for the same timeframe: Hey for Business.
Right now, Basecamp is limiting sign ups to the free trial of Hey via a wait list plus invite system. As of yesterday, it said there were more than 50,000 people on the wait list — warning it might take “a couple of weeks” before they’re ready to accept direct sign-ups.
In the meanwhile, for anyone keen on a closer look at Basecamp’s reorganized spin on email, founder and CEO, Jason Fried, has recorded the below video for a walk through tour of Hey’s features…
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