Travis Vocino Experiments in Art, Science & Technology.

As anyone that has worked with me will tell you, I’m a big perfectionist when it comes to having well reached cohesive brand identity. As you can see by the looks of things around here (my site), I’m in the middle of a total overhaul. Unfortunately, before I get to the good stuff — like finishing up this actual site — my business infrastructure is the priority.

I Heart Brands

For a while, I was using ActiveCollab primarily because it allowed me to brand my project management suite how I wanted. However, when 37Signals released the Basecamp API and due to the added connivence of a hosted solution, I decided to make the switch. I spent the quick second customizing my colors and perfecting how my logo looked on their sidebar.

One problem though: I still don’t like sending people to something.clientsection.com (or any of the other available TLDs they offer). Of course, I could host the login page on my site like a lot of people do but that’s not enough for me. I like my network of sites to at least have some level of collectiveness.

The solution could be easy. Simply create a CNAME entry in your DNS. Why doesn’t 37Signals allow this? Grrr!

When I click “Edit Basecamp Address” I should be able to put in anything, god damnit. One of the great things about Google’s acquisition of FeedBurner is how they have made everything over there free — including the MyBrand services which allow for this type of CNAME url branding.Come on 37Signals, get with it.

CNAMEs with Basecamp

The good news is, a lot of Basecamp already works perfectly under this method. Everything that I can see is linked relatively without using your original URL (/directory instead of http://mycompany.clientsection.com/directory/). Therefore, if you enter your Basecamp with your new CNAME’d address, you will navigate smoothly around and keep the new perfectly branded URL in the address bar.Note though, your account is identified by the first part of your Basecamp URL — so that part must remain the same for it to work.

Will not work:

clients.mycompany.com CNAME mycompany.clientsection.com.

Will work:

mycompany.mycompany.com CNAME mycompany.clientsection.com.

Most Basecamp users that I know use their company name for their URL. Obviously, it looks sort of stupid to have a url like mycompany.mycompany.com for your client area. Theoretically, if you wanted to use this temporary CNAME solution, you could name your Basecamp URL something else, like hipclients.clientsection.com — thus making the address you give people hipclients.mycompany.com.

Unfortunately, a large part of Basecamp is notification emails (since a lot of clients are RSS dumbies). When the system sends an email, it sends your original Basecamp address. When your client clicks it, they may completely freak out and immediately send you 400 emails asking why the address is different, followed by 200 voicemails in regards to the 400 emails they just sent starting with “I just sent you an email…”

No one wants that.

Come On 37S

I looked around the network of tubes to try to find a statement or something from 37S about why they don’t offer this kind of thing but couldn’t come across anything. Until then, if you use Basecamp primarily for your personal projects, don’t use the external notification services, or just don’t care about the occasional lacks in URL continuity, you can create a CNAME for your Basecamp address and go nuts.