(Archived) How do you use shared/public notebooks?

[Nadya De Angelis 24]

Just curious.

My first thought was that they make a perfect blogging platform, since I write all my texts in EN anyway. It would be a super easy and convenient way of publishing things - just write something, add tags, make it public - and voila.

I was wrong, obviously. Public/shared notebooks cannot serve as blogs - first of all they lack comments, and other things (embed video, design tweaks etc.)

Still, I have the feeling that they have a hidden potential - but can't figure it out. How do you people use public/shared notebooks?

[gazumped 11,661]

Not sure about a "hidden" potential, but I will be using shared notebooks for family information/ discussions (like who's on holiday, when and with whom) and for consultations: I get asked lots of technical questions on a couple of specialist subjects, and it gets tiring giving a full and complete answer. Since some of these questions are duplicates, I can store my "perfect" answers in a notebook and just pass on the URL instead of writing a long email. Again.

Sharing is a one-to-many exercise - you giving one or more others access to your own material. It isn't collaboration, that's many2many; and it isn't blog publishing which is pretty much the same thing with specialist add-ins like extra media content and comments. However you can use it (via suitable notebooks and tags) to capture an idea for a future blogging item; do the research and drafting required to polish the idea; complete the draft, and cut/ paste to your blogging source of choice.

It's good to think outside the box to see whether software can be used more efficiently, but if you're already happily using other software for blogging / web design / journalling or whatever I'd strongly suggest you go on doing what you're doing and don't try to use Evernote like a software Swiss Army knife and bend it to every use. Evernote stick fairly strictly to their core vision of remembering things for you wholesale; and your best use of the software (IMHO) is for exactly that.

In time you'll find that organising your experienced data is a full enough task, without diluting the content by adding random third party input - which with public sites like a blog - can sometimes be malicious or mischievous.

[Nadya De Angelis 24]

It's good to think outside the box to see whether software can be used more efficiently, but if you're already happily using other software for blogging / web design / journalling or whatever I'd strongly suggest you go on doing what you're doing

The matter is, no, I am not happy with any other blogging or social site I've tried so far. For me it's crucial to have all my texts in one place, with one system of tags, that's why I still hope that EN sooner or later will develop this functionality.

[Metrodon 2,184]

I really don't think that they are trying to build a blog product...

[Owyn 457]

I see this as a niche application that might attract a trunk developer.

Evernote needs to stay focused on core requirements such as consistency between platforms.