Evernote Icon - what the heck is it? Anyone actually like version 3 ?

[Darwin]

Thanks, Jim   That's disappointing as the formatting in Evernote 2.2 works very well, as far as I can tell. I actually came to Evernote because development of NetSnippets ceased, for reasons I've never understood. I keep thinking about InfoQube as well... Like you, I've never immersed myself in it and am not comfortable with it, yet. I'm on Firefox 3 as my default browser now, so should really look at... the name is gone! It's a free plug-in that doubles as a bibliographic tool. I *think* it will clip web pages as well. My main interest in web clippings is to archive receipts and other transactions until confirmation e-mails are sent. Zotero - I remembered! Right, off to take a look now...

[J-Mac]

Well speaking only on my personal opinion, if you haven't tried Evernote 3 yet, then I'd suggest giving up on any kind of import options. They're just two vastly different apps that I have a growing suspicion the developers only used the Evernote name so they could get part of the fanbase' of the brand as well as explain away why they are giving up on the previous model. (cause really they have no good reason other than purely abandoning it)

EverNote 3 is just so far from EverNote 2 that the team is quicker at adding options at getting people using Google Notebooks to use EN 3 than trying to grab the old market of EN 2.

http://blog.evernote...e-notebook-import-2/

-Paul Keith (January 26, 2009, 10:39 PM)

Paul,

It's the same CEO, and this is definitely his plan. He is purposely going after those new customers and not the old Evernote users. It's the money, of course. There was really no more money to be made from the relatively few of us who were avid EN 2 users.Even if he got all of us to pay for a new version there are not enough users to make a difference in revenue.

Compared to the old version the new one is purely Web 2.0 glitz. But he is pulling in thousands of new users and if they purchase subscriptions it is a constantly renewing revenue source. Phil has no interest in creating an advanced application; he simply wants one that will attract a lot of new users. Paying users. Mobile users. Renewing-every-year users.

No idealism there IMO. Just plain old economics.

Jim

[J-Mac]

Thanks, Jim   That's disappointing as the formatting in Evernote 2.2 works very well, as far as I can tell. I actually came to Evernote because development of NetSnippets ceased, for reasons I've never understood. I keep thinking about InfoQube as well... Like you, I've never immersed myself in it and am not comfortable with it, yet. I'm on Firefox 3 as my default browser now, so should really look at... the name is gone! It's a free plug-in that doubles as a bibliographic tool. I *think* it will clip web pages as well. My main interest in web clippings is to archive receipts and other transactions until confirmation e-mails are sent. Zotero - I remembered! Right, off to take a look now...

-Darwin (January 26, 2009, 10:45 PM)

I mentioned Zotero in my post above. It is nice, but I'm now using Surfulater for the same function. I just prefer to have the database more in my control.

Evernote 3 is free unless you want their so-called advanced features or want to use a lot of bandwidth. Give it a try - who knows, it may be right for you. Just don’t import your only copy of your Evernotes 2.2 database into EN3. I suggest that you make a copy and keep a copy safe.   

Jim

[Paul Keith]

Paul,

It's the same CEO, and this is definitely his plan. He is purposely going after those new customers and not the old Evernote users. It's the money, of course. There was really no more money to be made from the relatively few of us who were avid EN 2 users.Even if he got all of us to pay for a new version there are not enough users to make a difference in revenue.

Compared to the old version the new one is purely Web 2.0 glitz. But he is pulling in thousands of new users and if they purchase subscriptions it is a constantly renewing revenue source. Phil has no interest in creating an advanced application; he simply wants one that will attract a lot of new users. Paying users. Mobile users. Renewing-every-year users.

No idealism there IMO. Just plain old economics.

Jim

-J-Mac (January 26, 2009, 10:47 PM)

Nah...plain old economics says you should never make your previous customers think you're screwing with them. You never know when you need them back. 

I don't think going the Web 2.0 route was a horrible idea contrary to what many think but there really was no reason to change the brand. This is a case of a company growing so greedy, it wanted to have it's pie and eat it too.

Just the rabid change in icon alone implies that earlier on, the idea might have been to create a new service altogether and link Evernote with it. Some guy probably found out how the new application didn't import Evernote 2 well and how they could get more users if they don't try to sell this service as a premium service but instead over it as a freemium service while taking a piss on the old name and it's users.

Really, IMO proper marketing would have been to say that they could no longer support the EverNote brand and do a Google and say they are temporarily suspending development of that application but of course, add some incentive like maybe give away the last free stable version of EverNote pro, gather new found "rebound" interest and maybe improve upon the previous version and release a brand new "limited edition" pay-only EverNote with better features and rake in the cash but clearly greed took over and the company just wanted short term revenue on the old product and long term revenue on the new one.

[J-Mac]

Well, Evernote was very cash-strapped and having difficulty getting serious investors. After the move the the "cloud" with Evernote 3 they picked up several tens of millions in fresh cash inflow from investors.

I am thinking that they are probably happy with their move.

Jim

[Paul Keith]

Wait for it, recession hasn't fully arrived yet. THEN the time for kissing up to customers will truly judge how happy they will be. 

(I know. Bad joke. Couldn't resist though.)

[Carol Haynes]

Personally I don't use Evernote any more. I hated the new client and I haven't been back to look again.

Still haven't really found a solution but I do have MS OneNote installed - not that I use it much.

[Paul Keith]

If you don't feel my question is hijacking this thread too much Carol, I'd like to know what you feel was the key to getting you into Evernote in the first place.

I know Evernote had lots of templates that extended it further than it's original design was and you seem to be the type that would be using it to it's fullest potential based on what I've read of some of your posts but you're also someone that has constantly rallied on the ribbon so I'm curious as to what quirks EverNote did that really did it for you.

[Carol Haynes]

I just really like the version 2.2 client and particularly the indexing of handwritten notes.

[Darwin]

I also have OneNote 2007 installed... but don't use it... ever! Should take a look. Also to note, UltraRecall will be 62% off (applies to both editions) at BitsduJour on Wednesday, 28 January. Will look at that as well.

Given that I have three "seats" for OneNote, I should really be looking there first, though...

[J-Mac]

I also have OneNote 2007 installed... but don't use it... ever! Should take a look. Also to note, UltraRecall will be 62% off (applies to both editions) at BitsduJour on Wednesday, 28 January. Will look at that as well.

Given that I have three "seats" for OneNote, I should really be looking there first, though...

-Darwin (January 27, 2009, 08:00 AM)

Not the same kind of animal at all, Sir Darwin. Different feature sets - really different! Give Ultra Recall a try to see what I mean. OneNote 2007 is a collection of notes. Ultra Recall Pro is a pretty powerful database application.

Jim

[Paul Keith]

I just really like the version 2.2 client and particularly the indexing of handwritten notes.

-Carol Haynes (January 27, 2009, 04:23 AM)

Thanks Carol. I have no tablet pc so I didn't know EN 2's indexing was better. I was under the impression the third one was better because if I remember correctly, they even demo'ed how it could search for texts in embedded images.

Have to both agree and disagree with J-Mac. I think Ultra Recall is powerful but it's also almost so different from EverNote, I'm not sure if it can be considered underpowered (because it's still just a notetaker with a hierarchy) or overpowered in the sense that it's a notetaker with a bloated filtering feature.

I don't mean to come off as negative towards UltraRecall and I do understand that it's one of the top notetakers around. I just think that in relation to Evernote who's more of a "single phrase search" notes kind of tool, it's debateable whether UltraRecall is overpowered than OneNote in the sense that at their core, OneNote really isn't far behind as far as searching for notes. Of course database-wise, UltraRecall is superior to both but database-wise even EverNote 2 wasn't really aimed at that market.

Personally as far as pay-ware, even though I've only tried the demos, I think ndxcards and azz cardfile are much closer to EverNote's structure although if you start going that route, Tomboy Notes starts becoming a decent alternative to those and it just moves downward until the only thing missing with the other applications are templates and clippers but then it can be argued that EN 3.0 is as good enough a general clipper and if you want a much more feature-wise clipper, you always have the Scrapbook Firefox extension and Surfulator so you're back to EN 2 again.

[J-Mac]

Paul,

The way you are using the terms "underpowered" and "overpowered" has lost me. I never called UR underpowered, and I certainly wouldn’t in comparing it to Evernote. Ultra Recall is not a "notetaker", BTW; far from it.

Darwin mentioned that he was thinking of foregoing the Bits discount on Ultra Recall Pro because he has OneNote. I was telling him that they are very different and that OneNote cannot replace the finctionality of Ultra Recall. For that matter, neither can Evernote.

IMO, both Evernote and OneNote ARE notetakers and web clippers for smaller notes, which is very different from Ultra Recall Pro.

I still don’t know what point you are trying to make.

Jim

[Paul Keith]

Oh, I was using underpowered and overpowered in relation to Evernote since this is an EN thread so I interpreted him saying he is pursuing UltraRecall and OneNote as a replacement for EverNote.

In this sense, you could consider UltraRecall as underpowered as a notetaker because as you have pointed out, it's not a notetaker in the sense of EverNote yet Recall is still a notetaker in the sense that you put stuff on it that you took. (and you grab stuff out of it to find the stuff you put into it)

[J-Mac]

Oh, I was using underpowered and overpowered in relation to Evernote since this is an EN thread so I interpreted him saying he is pursuing UltraRecall and OneNote as a replacement for EverNote.

In this sense, you could consider UltraRecall as underpowered as a notetaker because as you have pointed out, it's not a notetaker in the sense of EverNote yet Recall is still a notetaker in the sense that you put stuff on it that you took. (and you grab stuff out of it to find the stuff you put into it)

-Paul Keith (January 27, 2009, 10:55 PM)

True, but using that broad sense you could call Excel and Access "notetakers" also! 

Jim

[Paul Keith]

Exactly 

Btw not to rub it in (but really I am!)

Notetaking Software Round-up#1


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Btw, for those of you who are active and are willing to be patient with monitoring an EverNote clone. One application you might want to set your eyes on is CintaNotes

It's just a less stable Tobu meets OneNote's clipper right now not much different from a desktop client version of my suggestion here but it's already gaining a niche on it's forums.

To take from what someone else wrote in one of the topics:

Two Things That Make Me Go Wow

There are two features in your software that make me go WOW and they are reasons I really like two other pieces of software that have one each of your two features.

It is also the main reasons I will continue to use your software and promote it to everyone I know.

The first is something that also appears in Microsoft OneNote: Automatic saving of all data when it is entered. This mimics traditional paper and pen concepts. I write something and it is there on the paper. This whole concept of then having to explicitly save files and pick a location etc. It's just not natural nor is it obvious when you have never used a computer. I think this concept needs to disappear in lots of software now that we have the hardware and software to make this seamless and transparent to the user. The less I have to click, read and type in the better.

The second comes from Firefox: Find as you type without having to click or press any shortcut keys. This is incredibly powerful and the instant filtering and highlighting of exactly what I am typing seems magical and really gets people going WOW. No shortcut keys to remember or buttons to click. I am thinking of a word and I just start typing it and it magical starts appearing highlighted on the screen.

These are the two major features in your software that make it very intuitive and easy to use for me.

Thanks. for some great software and I will closely watch how this product is refined and kept focused on its primary goal of taking and storing Notes.

If I think of any other features I will let you know.

I do like the suggestion someone made about making the first line in the body of the Note the heading. Every part of the interface needs to be assessed for NOT what I can add to make it better but what can I remove to make it better. Also having the URL/Link field separate seems overkill. Just put it in the body of the Note as well. If you implement clickable links then you can always do searching on URL's without having to store it in a separate field.

Thanks.