tavor
-
Posts
893 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
10
Content Type
Profiles
Events
Forums
Blogs
Gallery
Downloads
Posts posted by tavor
-
-
33 minutes ago, gazumped said:
Stats used to be my thing (insurance underwriter) and the one thing I learned was; never take one indicator in isolation. That trend downwards forinstance might be because the marketing got better - people were being led to the website directly rather than have to search for it...
On a related note, do you think power users evangelizing for EN has increased on decreased in recent years? Years ago, I was evangelizing to close family and friends. A few years ago, after a continued pattern of releases with poor QA that broke user workflows, I could no longer in good conscience recommend the product even though I use it every day.
Perhaps a comparison would shed some light on your point. Here are search trends for Evernote and OneNote over the last 10 years:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-12-13 2020-12-13&geo=US&q=evernote,onenote
From my perspective, those trends line up with what I experienced. OneNote has been around forever, but never generated much excitement. It's been Steady Eddie, and with Office365 including it for free, it continues to soldier on. Evernote was a rocketship by comparison, and that trend peak in the first half of the 2010s corresponds to a time when there were so many people evangelizing for EN, a time when Evernote not only lapped OneNote, but defined the space, even though it came years after OneNote.
It's harder to do a good trend search for some of the other players in the note taking space because many of the names are not unique to the software - e.g., bear, joplin, nimbus, etc., and so you have trend results showing popularity even before these apps were launched.
-
3
-
-
Google Trends for the search term "evernote":
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today 5-y&geo=US&q=evernote
If you were a VC investor in a tech startup that is over 10yrs old, and has this kind of search trend result (down 80% in 5 years), how comfortable would you feel? Would you want a management team that focuses on keeping the power users happy, or would you want one that attempts to put the company on a path to growth in users (which translates to a higher valuation in a prospective IPO or sale)?
Once you understand what the company owners are thinking, you will have a much better understanding of the decisions made by management. Trying to understand management decisions from the perspective of what is best for power users will only leave you scratching your head.
-
4
-
-
3 hours ago, eric99 said:
I just installed Standard Notes on Android, but it seems to be very restricted. I'm I missing something? For instance; is it possible to add pictures, is there a camera option?
And if my notes (and index?) are encrypted at the client side as well, how does the search work?
I don't know, as I haven't installed Standard Notes yet, though I do intend to give this a test drive, as well as Joplin.
Couple of places you can ask:
-
On 12/4/2020 at 2:27 PM, Jeff A Bailey said:
If EN didn't bake a plugin feature into their new product they are done.
This could have been easily solved if EN could be extended like so many other software tools can.
I'm about ready to move to another tool. Nine years and counting to deliver a feature that would be INCREDIBLY useful to people, seriously?!
Maybe with v10, they will add plugins? Some of the competition is doing this, for example, Standard Notes, which allows for the creation of extensions, similar to Chrome extensions. It certainly provides a pathway to much quicker development of high demand features. If relying on the core app developer, we could easily have situations like the one this thread highlights - users waiting 9yrs and counting for a broadly useful feature.
-
2
-
-
21 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:
There are two OneNotes: One stand alone, restricted in its features and storage mainly local, the other is part of Office 365 and saving to the 1TB of OneDrive you get with O365. So if you already have an O365 subscription, technically spoken OneNote is free. If not, you are cut back to the free version, or you need to subscribe.
Personally I don’t have an O365 subscription, and don’t like OneNote. Case closed.
Haven't looked at ON in a long time, but as I recall the free version was online notes only. The paid version allowed you to keep some notes local-only (unsynchronized). There were some other differences as well, but that's the one I recall. Could be they have changed things.
-
My guess is at least 6 months. I figure it will take at least that long to restore all the functionality (that they intend to keep, as opposed to functionality that is never coming back) that wasn't carried over to the initial release of the new version. Maybe even longer than 6 months, because they'll have to iron out the bugs, so could be a year or so.
Dropping support for legacy EN before that would be forcing users to choose between a v10 that is buggy/missing features and a competitor, and I don't think they want to put that gun to their users' heads until they have a product that they think is best in class.
But the choice might come sooner for premium subscribers with renewal dates over the next few months.
The good news is that every serious competitor that doesn't already have the ability to import EN notes will be scrambling to build in that functionality or enhance their existing import functionality. Evernote has by far the biggest userbase. Any ambitious competitor is salivating at the opportunity created by the disastrous handling of v10 release (both communication and execution) to grow their own userbase exponentially (even a tiny loss of users for EN would be a huge gain in users for the much, much smaller competition).
-
2
-
-
19 minutes ago, NorcalScott said:
Agreed about Joplin - I am trying it out and both desktop (Windows) and mobile apps (iPad and Android) are very fast. Searching is amazingly fast. Downside with Joplin is no good way to create notes from emails, but I think I can get around that. It should be embarrassing to Evernote that an open source app is so much better performing than their app, even with encryption enabled (which is a major perk of Joplin by the way).
For even more security, there is Standard Notes, also open source - big security difference is Standard Notes keeps data encrypted even on your device, while Joplin only encrypts data in transit and in storage on servers (and as you note, even that is more than EN does). Also has extensions (similar concept to Chrome extensions) which allows people to build on additional functionality, which is a great concept as it allows for crowdsourcing of additional functionality instead of waiting on the core devs to agree to add a particular feature and then get around to developing it. Even has a spreadsheet extension. I'll have to give this a try.
I haven't looked around at other note apps in years (back then, the only viable alternative was OneNote, everything else was more or less at the Google Keep level), and it's amazing how many have sprung up in recent years. To the point where we have viable open source alternatives, to say nothing of proprietary alternatives.
-
2
-
-
3 hours ago, Vidalia said:
I wonder whether notes app is still a viable business model - especially after Microsoft offering Onenote for free!
EN may continue with a some diehard fans as a niche product but it is unlikely to appeal to any new user in a big scale.
While having a giant like Microsoft offering a competing product for free (though even they have a paid version) is a challenge, we have seen an explosion in the note app space in the last few years - and that explosion took place *despite* the presence of two giants (EN and ON) with free versions.
Why is that? Probably because the growth of the potential market is huge. Humans didn't evolve in an environment with so much information overload. Trying to cope without some kind of "external brain" for storage and retrieval of information is only going to get more difficult. That doesn't mean that note taking apps are the long term solution for the information challenge, but for right now, that seems to be the most viable option.
-
3
-
-
Do you have any tips on maximizing portability of your database and notes?
One thing I've been semi-cognizant of is not allowing my notes database to bloat up because as it relates to portability, if you need to travel, it's easier to travel light. I'm ~5k notes and the db is a little over 4gb. Just sorted by largest size and see that I have plenty of notes over 5mb. I can see right away that some are no longer of any use, so those will get the axe. Others I still want to hold onto, but really don't need the content in EN because I'll only need to access it from my main desktop - for those, I'll print to pdf (or save the content in a different file type if a pdf isn't the best option), delete content from note and replace with a link to the file on my desktop's disk.
That's one example. Perhaps extensive note linking (notes with links to other notes) isn't great if one wishes to be maximize portability? Workaround for that, that is portable?
Any other ideas? Of course not all tips will be practical for all users who have an interest in this topic as our use cases are all different.
-
30 minutes ago, toao said:
fully agree with your comments @tavor, especially on the company valuation. EN is a fairly "old" startup, so it is no longer being valued on customer numbers (that could be monetized in some way form or fashion by a new owner) alone any more.
they need to show decent revenue, at the minimum self sustainability or a strong upward trajectory. so if there is a significant drop in the revenue forecast, that indeed would create an issue for the exec team, both from the VC owners as well as for their own bonuses. clearly I am just wild guessing here as there are no public numbers, but I read two things in Ians statement: annoyance with and a certain concern about the "intensive customers". I interpret that to be a commercial concern, but I clearly don't know. like yourself I would not be overly optimistic about EN moving in the direction of the concerns raised here unless the commercial pressure is massive...
Yes, EN is an old startup at this point, but your valuation assessment is totally off base, IMHO. Look at companies like Netflix and Amazon - they lost incredible amounts of money (EN losses are a drop in a bucket by comparison) year after year for many years, yet they were able to go public and reached stratospheric valuations.
Again, look at the evidence. If power users were important to profitability and profitability was important to valuation, would EN management be making the decisions they are? If your answer is "no", then you need to change some of your assumptions.
-
9 minutes ago, DTLow said:
This is the first time that Evernote has specified in the release notes
please be aware that there are a handful of features—such as ...—that are not yet available. If your workflow depends on these features, you can continue to use our legacy apps.
and released a special Legacy versionRight. And what they should have done was noted that in the update notification. Most people don't read release notes anymore as we've all gotten used to the numerous and frequent updates of nearly all the apps we use on our desktops/laptops and mobile devices. MANY users thought they were getting a "regular"/minor update, and didn't realize that instead they were getting a gut renovated new version. If they had made that clear in the update notification, they would have saved themselves and many of their users a lot of grief and wasted time.
Just another data point that demonstrates that power users are not their priority (I'm not angry, I understand it, as described in earlier posts).
-
5
-
-
22 minutes ago, toao said:
as about the the wrath of the tiny fraction: the key question actually is how big a percentage this tiny fraction is as part of the *paying* user base, not of the overall base. from a commercial point of view the basic users are just cost (with the hope to be converted to paying at some point), it is the paying subscribers that are critical. the way I read Ians statement is that something is happening with these very paying subs, something that concerns them enough to finally react. only time will truly tell though...
I think you overestimate the importance of power users. The evidence over the years strongly suggests that power users are not their priority. I have long suspected that no one in executive management is what the actual power users on this forum would consider a power user.
Users who have been on this forum for a long time know that this is not the first time EN has released product that broke basic functionality and nuked user workflows. In fact, this has been par for the course with EN - long term power users, am I wrong?
Now think about the last time you went to a new version of Excel or Word and some basic feature was borked. That's right - it doesn't happen! The QA and beta testing and no negative surprises approach that an established company like Microsoft can take is completely different from what we have seen from EN, not just with this release, but every release going back years, which is why I suggested earlier in this thread that Ian Small's response was nothing new - every EN CEO does something similar after they release product they know will disrupt their power userbase. I think anyone who reads Small's response as EN changing how they view their power users is going to be disappointed.
In their defense, a small, VC financed company is under a lot of pressure to move fast, and moving fast means things break. And things breaking disproportionately adversely impacts power users.
A tiny paying group of power users does not make for a high valuation. For a company that needs an exit (sale or IPO), maximizing valuation is the goal, and keeping power users happy has very little to do with that goal. Once users understand that, EN's decision making will make a lot more sense.
-
7
-
1
-
1
-
2
-
-
22 hours ago, Evernoter12345aaa said:
Issues:
2) The slow speed and cludgy feel of the new software is a dealbreaker. A key reason I picked EN over OneNote is the ability to moved at hyperspeed in the Windows version with shortcuts and other tools. The new version kills that and eliminates this competitive advantage. If real-time sync is the cause, add a way to disable in future versions. I'd gladly give up real-time sync for better speed, as I imagine most would. At least give us the option.
I wonder how much of the sluggishness is related to the new common codebase. Meaning, if many or most of the underlying processes are now common across platforms, you give up some of the optimization you could otherwise have for the specific platform, whether that is Windows, Mac, iOS, or Android.
Of course if all the competitors are doing the same thing, it's not really a competitive disadvantage.
-
Don't hold your breath.
Why would he subject himself to the wrath of the tiny fraction of the EN userbase that are power users? He's got bigger fish to fry.
-
3
-
-
49 minutes ago, CyberBaratna said:
Do you guys know if there's any way to continue using the new Evernote application and still have notebooks that don't sync to Evernote's cloud? I mean, maybe they have Evernote for offline clouds that you can install on a corporate server or something? At the very least, that would allow a cybersecurity team to collaborate and still keep those notes close-hold.
Nope.
If you want to store data in EN and NOT have that in EN's cloud (in unencrypted form), your current options are EN Legacy (which I'm using), do what DTLow suggested (have only links in EN, with the actual data stored elsewhere), or find another app (which I'm starting to explore). Good news is EN Legacy will probably be around for at least a few months, so there is time for those of us for whom data security is a priority to find a new home.
-
1 hour ago, MB11 said:
That blog post inspires less confidence than I had before.
Exactly. Seems it's always the same with EN management, even as the names at the top change. We have heard similar acknowledgements before.
I've been through this song and dance long enough to know that not breaking workflows of users is a low priority for management. They are focused on delivering for their investors, who, naturally, need an exit. EN is pretty old for a private tech company.
-
2
-
-
1 hour ago, fred2112 said:
I guess I don't disagree with you too much here. Just felt like a winge. Being a big user of local notebooks it felt okay to give a bit of finger. I will delete it though as it solves nothing. 🙂
Lack of local notebooks (or E2E encrypted notebooks) are a dealbreaker for me, so I feel your pain. All cloud data eventually gets hacked, and it will happen to Evernote users.
For those who put their faith in EN to safeguard private notes, note that FireEye, a multibillion dollar market cap CYBERSECURITY company announced yesterday that they were hacked. You really think EN has better security?
-
2
-
-
-
I'm on Android 10 (which new EN Android version requires), but since I'm still on EN Legacy on desktop, I don't have the option to upgrade to the new Android version.
Good idea. I'll have to hunt around for an apk of 8.13.x
-
1
-
-
On Android v 8.13.3, when I click in a note to edit it, there is a long delay before the cursor appears and I am able to edit the note. This started very roughly a couple of months ago. Are others experiencing this?
-
2 hours ago, sunvalley said:
I thought Nimbus was a potential alternative until I discovered they had removed E2E Encryption! In addition, they do not have any encryption functionality at the notebook or note text level. So I stopped my evaluation and testing until support provides a response or adds it to their roadmap.
I haven't tried it out yet, but Joplin does have E2E encryption. https://joplinapp.org/e2ee/
To my mind, that's a good alternative to the EN Local Notebooks feature. If you trust the encryption, it's even better than Local Notebooks because it allows you to access the notes on any device, not just the device used to create the note. And it's something EN users have asked for for a long time, but never got any traction with management. Of course, if you plan on data mining user data, providing E2E to your users is a non-starter.
-
1 hour ago, CalS said:
A good reason not to use V10 until it is fixed, or at least better. And yeah, local notebooks are an issue not matter what the other function that gets added back.
Speaking of functions that will not be added back, or maybe way down the list - shortcuts? Some users of the Windows app such as you and I love our shortcuts. I wonder how that will translate in the new version that is meant to be mostly the same across platforms.
-
1 minute ago, CalS said:
I still use 6.25.1, last official release of the old stuff, which has the green icon. No sense switching to legacy if I'm not switching to V10 at the moment.
I made the mistake of updating EN without reading the release notes. I went in assuming it was just a 'dot' update, not a major new release. So I had to install the "Legacy" version, 6.25.2.
Really wish they had a warning on the update notification! That probably would have saved them a lot of the grief that ensued when people updated and were shocked by what they saw and realized that their workflows just got nuked.
-
4
-
-
5 minutes ago, CalS said:
A good reason not to use V10 until it is fixed, or at least better. And yeah, local notebooks are an issue not matter what the other function that gets added back.
I thought greying out the icon for the legacy app was an obnoxious move. Nothing like giving a cold shoulder to users who aren't as enthralled as management is by the latest version. 🥶
-
1
-
Device limit change for Evernote Basic - to include web access
in Evernote General Discussions
Posted
I agree. I have used EN at Basic, Plus and Premium levels at different times over the years. Back on Basic because legacy EN works pretty well for me and it's difficult to justify the huge gap from Basic to Premium's price for my current use case. I'd say a mid-tier option would be great, but clearly EN management has tried and abandoned that.
So if they are going to stay in the 2 tier - Basic and Premium - framework, if the goal is to increase paying subscribers (personally, I don't think that's as high a priority as many on this forum seem to think), then they need to induce Basic users to pay for Premium. How? Either increase the feature gap or decrease the price gap.
The quickest way to increase the feature gap is to take features away from Basic. Premium is so loaded with features that it's already the most feature rich note app available as far as I know. And given the move to v10, it's going to be some time before they restore Premium v10 to Premium Legacy's feature set, much less surpass it, so it's hard to envision a lot of Basic users jumping to Premium in the near term. That leaves removing features from Basic as the more practical option to increase the feature gap. And as you note, Basic is very feature rich, to the point that there is little incentive to upgrade for many users. Even if they cut back here and there, they are still at least on par, if not better, than most of the competition.
The other inducement to upgrade is decrease the price gap. Given how frequently Premium goes on sale, I'm guessing the regular price is not competitive. And the value proposition is tough to justify in comparison to Office 365 Personal - all the Office apps, OneNote, 1TB of cloud storage for $70/year. EN wants $8/mo for Premium. Ouch.
Given the abandonment of Plus, which I'm guessing didn't draw enough users up from Basic, it seems to me the core issue is that Basic is too feature rich. And it's also the easiest issue to solve.