The Backboard team has been hard at work on a new set of Backboard features based on your feedback. The new Backboard allows you to do more than the original, but we have done our best to ensure your experience is still so easy you could create Backboards and leave feedback in your sleep.

Enhanced Security
We understand that some documents are more confidential than others, and may need additional measures in place to ensure their security. Now you can specify one of three different security levels for your Backboards.

1. Open to anyone who knows the URL (Standard security) - This security level makes it quick and easy to get feedback from collaborators. We protect your Backboard by locating it at a difficult to guess URL–so difficult that today’s computers would require thousands of years to break in.
2. Requires a secret Access Key - We protect your Backboard by including a secret Access Key in the invitation email. Each viewer must enter the Access Key before he or she can see your Backboard.
3. Restricted to people I invite - We protect your Backboard by requiring all viewers to log into their own confirmed, password-protected Backboard accounts, and then allow access to your Backboard only to the people you’ve authorized. This security level provides the maximum security for your Backboards and requires a nominal monthly fee.

Better Sharing Support
Sharing a Backboard shouldn’t be difficult. Check out Backboard Groups, which make it easy to share multiple Backboards with the same project team and Address Book Import to get your contacts from Outlook, Gmail, LinkedIn, Yahoo and Hotmail.

Multiple Versions
After getting feedback, it is often important to make changes to your file and request thoughts on the new version. Backboard now supports multiple versions of the same document–as many as you need to get your work just right.

Request Approval
Select this option while you’re creating your Backboard, and the contacts you share with will be asked not only to provide feedback, but also to approve your document. This allows you to make sure you have the go-ahead from your team before proceeding.

Premium Plans
While Backboard will always make its basic functionality available for free, we are making certain features (maximum security and larger file uploads) available for a low monthly fee. A premium account also grants you the license to use your Backboard for business purposes. Need your entire team to create secure Backboards or Backboards from large files? Simply choose a Team or Office account.

At Backboard, we rely heavily on feedback from users to help us shape new features and functionality.

The process is simple (and borrowed from some of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs). First, we come up with a vision. At a high level, what will the product do? How will it affect our users’ lives?

Next, we build the basic infrastructure to address the vision. For Backboard, this was the no-frills initial version, launched in mid-May. While some reviewers found the product a bit too simple, others found the ease-of-use refreshing. We found that if you give users a taste of where you are going, and ask for their feedback, you can shape a product that addresses their needs spot on.

Feedback on the early versions of Backboard came rolling in, taking the form of blog posts, comments, emails and posts on our sample Backboard. We compared this feedback to our product plan and made some significant changes–prioritizing features our users asked for most. Address books and security (now launched) shot to the top of the list. Other features were nixed — they would only serve to distract from Backboard’s core functionality.

We have been working hard for the last couple of months to introduce these new features. Please continue to give us feedback!

As a feedback company, what is more natural than seeking feedback at every stage of development?