What is there to say that already hasn’t been covered about the new email service from Basecamp. I have been using it for a couple of weeks now, having made sure I got hold of invites for me and a couple of people I wanted to take a look at it. After initially rejecting it, I have grown to like it and feel like it will make a difference to my email interactions. So if you want to reach out to me, you can always email me greg.morris@hey.com, especially if you’re using the service too, as I would love to know your thoughts.

This is without discussing the Apple App Store issue that are combined with the launch story, which I don’t really want to comment on because this has been said a hundred times and will continue to be head about every so often for ever more. Some fo this is a valid concern, some of this is marketing and it’s nearly impossible to find the divide, but there has been a resolution for the time being, so we will wait to see what happens.

There are two things that have really changed the way I use my email and made finding thins so much easier. Hey allows you to rename the subject of emails, not something you would think revolutionary but it makes a bit of difference. I get loads of emails with no subject to being able to rename them makes it look and feel much better — this is completely on your side and doesn’t mess up anything for the other person that emailed you.

The second is being able to combine threads. I have never found an email client that gets this right and often end up with disjointed emails on the same subject. Or just followups that the other person didn’t reply to and instead sent a new email. In Hey, you can select any emails chains you wish and combine them all together. Agin this is completely on your side, so you can combine those from different people but about the same thing and nothing messes up the other end.

This is without considering all the features like reply later, tracking blocks and notification customisations. For a great overview check out Matt Birchler’s video below.

There is so much wrong with email, but there is nothing better. Every time someone tries to come up with something better it become tied down to payments, or locked to services. Hey is both of those things, but still open for people to contact you the same as normal. To me, this service is not perfect, but shows all the signs of making email better. It might not be forever, but at the minute, it’s great.