The New Coke Lesson
May 28th, 2008 | by GTD Wannabe |Readers who have been around for a while might recall that I’m a big EverNote fan (note the capital N). You may be wondering why I haven’t blogged about the new Evernote (note the little n) 3 beta here…
Well, I’d like to say that it’s because my mother taught me that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. But that’s not it. Instead, it’s more out of loyalty to the EverNote 2.2 that I know and love. Plus, to be honest, I don’t feel like wasting any more of my time constructively criticizing EN3b. I’ve done a lot of that on their support forum, and mostly to no avail. Hence, no discussions at all here.
On the forum today, there was a link to a great article: The New Coke Lesson: The Compulsion to Upgrade Can Produce a Marketing Disaster. Consider Vista and (Maybe) Evernote 3 by Gary North. Right away, I was struck by this quote:
But even monopolies tend to dissipate (except for Arm & Hammer Baking Soda). Here’s why: an unwillingness to listen to clients. “What do they know?”
They know how to shop for alternatives.
Gary makes some great points, especially about how hard it is for a new user to find anything out about the stable, fully-functional 2.2 version of EN, and about how bad the user manual is. (I’ve read it; it’s pretty bad. Plus, they haven’t even kept the manual up-to-date with the beta changes, which means it’s essentially useless now.)
Gary also suggests that EN’s marketing team is missing the ball, since the only way they’re going to make money is off the tablet PC version of EN, which they’re not advertising. I’m not saying he’s wrong, but I know from the forum that EN has an even bigger cash cow on its mind. There’s going to be a free version of the beta, which will limit you to some amount of online storage (the new EN3 paradigm is that all of your information lives in the ‘cloud’ and syncs to whatever machines you have connected). A premium version of EN will have, well, premium features, such as more storage space, and maybe better security. Unfortunately, they’re still throwing darts at the wall trying to figure out the best combination of storage space and cost. And it’s going to be a monthly subscription fee, so you know they’ll be milking this cow for as long as they can.
Another thing that is mentioned in the article is that EN isn’t really giving its current 2.2 users incentive to switch. This is true. In fact, some of the more vocal supporters of 2.2 have said that not only will they not switch to this crippled new version of EN, but they’re actively looking for alternatives.
So, what do users know? Well, we know how to shop ;)
And my recommendation to you? EverNote 2.2 is still the best software I’ve ever used for organizing miscellaneous snippets, web clippings, research notes, lists. etc. etc. If you want to check it out, skip the main Evernote page, and go straight to here. As for the new beta? Well, I think you can read between the lines.
7 Responses to “The New Coke Lesson”
By J.D. Harper on May 28, 2008 | Reply
Personally, I find that Evernote 3 is a huge improvement over Evernote 2. I tried to use Evernote 2 as an “external brain,” but found that the clumsy interface made it more trouble than it was worth. It may have been more powerful, but it was much harder to use for a beginning user.
Evernote 3 seems to be more focused on its strengths. It strikes me very much like the transition from Outlook email to Gmail. In Outlook there tends to be a lot of focus on putting emails in the right folders to make them easier to find, whereas in Gmail you just use the search box. Outlook can handle complex templates for emails, while Gmail keeps things simpler. Gmail is clean and easy to use, and Outlook is complex and difficult, but potentially more powerful for the überuser.
Here’s what I know for sure: I actually *use* Evernote now, and I didn’t before even after buying the pro version. I can access my notes from anywhere, including my phone. I don’t try to worry about making the notes pretty and organized any more, which was a huge stumbling block with Evernote 2 for me. Overall, I find it to be a much more usable product.
I’m not trying to convince you that you should drop your version of Evernote, because you’re obviously a power user. You know how to make Evernote 2 do exactly what you want, even if it means hand editing XML files. I’m just pointing out that the changes they’re making aren’t all bad. It’s not a crippled version, it’s a *streamlined* version.
By GTD Wannabe on May 28, 2008 | Reply
Basically, 2.2 and 3 are completely different pieces of software. If I hadn’t used 2.2, I can see the usefulness of 3, especially wrt syncing across multiple machines, being able to access via web, etc.
I do like your Outlook -> Gmail analogy though.
There are many things that I miss in 3, but I can see a way of working around some of them, especially by combining the use of notebooks and tags. That said, though, I’ve got 1000+ tags, and there’s only so much you can do to migrate a system like that to the new EN.
I could probably even be convinced to give up templates, although I do like the expense template that automatically calculates a running total for you.
Unfortunately, I’ve become very dependent on automatic keywords. For instance, if I type @waiting into a note, that note will show up in my @waiting category. It’s impossible to pull this off with EN3. Sure, there are “saved searches” (a max of 32 right now), but you can’t sort them into any particular order (without resorting to the old-fashion ‘prepend with a number technique’). Plus, even those saved searches won’t help me, because the “@” character cannot be recognized by EN. Their solution? Switch to the one non-alphanumeric character they permit in their searches: “_”. Riiight.
Plus, their searches aren’t as flexible as they used to be. They say they’re going more like the Google search, but it’s nowhere near as robust. I can search for “ALL” and I can search for “ANY” (after some tweaking), but I can’t do it quickly or easily.
And don’t worry, I know I’m in a minority here. There seem to be very few of us “power” users, and we’re obviously not financially interesting enough for EN to cater to us. That’s understandable. But I tell you, I’m hanging on to the last installer for EN2.2 that I downloaded! They’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead, hands ;)
By Bill Peterson on May 28, 2008 | Reply
Whether “streamlined,” “crippled,” or (as I would prefer to say)”dumbed-down,” EN3b is far less capable than EN2.2. The management at EN has offered various (sometimes mutually contradictory) explanations for this odd trajectory, including the following: (1) they want to make it simpler; (2) users don’t need the sophistication of 2.2, even though we’re loudly protesting that we do need it; and (3) the adaptation of EN to so many platforms means an inevitable movement toward a program that works equally well on all of them (translation: we are searching for the lowest common denominator).
That third reason has a ring of truth to it; I’m skeptical about the first two explanations. But the real underlying cause of this mysterious abandonment of an excellent piece of software (and many of its most loyal users) is, I assume, a marketing decision. When I began using EverNote (yes, capital N), I was attracted to it because (among other things) it was created by a small, apparently sensible company that was responsive to its users’ needs (as evidenced by their lively forum) and had some clever, innovative ideas about note-taking. But now the EN folks seem to have been seduced by their own loopy slogans — We want to become your external brain! We want to record your life! We want to keep your information on our servers for all eternity! — and have lurched off in a very peculiar direction.
I would be happy just to settle for a very good note-taking program that isn’t enfeebled when a new version is introduced. Maybe — adopting the New Coke analogy — they will have to (no doubt reluctantly) bring back EN Classic someday.
By Scotto on May 28, 2008 | Reply
Because I only first come across Evernote last March and have only used Evernote Beta 3, I don’t have personal experience with version 2.
However, I HAVE been using version 3 and it’s like crack – I can’t keep myself away from it. I love the look and feel of version 3, and especially love the synchronizing aspect. Without being able to synch between multiple computers, the program would be worthless to me. Having my info both in the “cloud” and backed up in multiple local machines is extremely convenient. Without synching, Evernote would be just another competitor for MicroShaft’s One Note.
Being free is another good plus too, although I would be willing to spend a few bucks for more storage.
From what I’ve read, version 2 didn’t have a Mac version, and since I’m planning to transition to a Mac to avoid Vista, it’s nice to know I can take my note taking program with me.
Version 3 does exactly what I want very elegantly with a minimum of fuss and little or no bloat. To me that’s a step in the right direction.
I truly hope Evernote keeps version 2 around as a “classic” version for the diehard fans, but there those of us who are very happy and satisfied with version 3.
By Stew on Jun 2, 2008 | Reply
Having used 2.2 and previous for the past few years, I have no intention of “upgrading” to version 3. Given the number of passwords, confidential and privileged information in my database, uploading it to the cloud isn’t an option. I’m perfectly happy keeping my data on an encrypted thumb drive, still available across multiple computers and even when offline.
By mike on Jul 31, 2008 | Reply
I’m curious to know your opinion on EN3 now. Has it changed any since this post. Has EN3 rolled out any new features that mimic EN2 features.
I’ve been using EN v2 for about 2 years now. I haven’t cracked open EN3 yet, but I probably will eventually. Just curious to see where you stand with the program.
By GTD Wannabe on Aug 1, 2008 | Reply
@Mike Good question! I’m using EN3 more often now, but only for non-essential information. I’m using it to hold things like tips, tweaks, books I’ve read. It’s okay, I guess. It’s not as fast as I had hoped once I dumped a bunch of notes in. I’m still getting used to using notebook + tag to replace my old categories. You’ll note that the notes that I’m bringing in *do not* require the use of autocategories – since those are good and dead.
I use EN2 much more – all the time actually – it’s always open. That’s where I keep my research notes; I use categories heavily and I need the ability to organize them in the “old” way, and make use of autocategories.
I guess we could say that I’m using EN3 about as much as I’m using OneNote. These are things that I consider “secondary” information sources; they do some things really well, but they’re not strong enough to be my primary application.
The one thing that EN3 has going for it is the fact that it sucks in information extremely well – the universal clipper is useful, and not as annoying as the old one was. The FF clippers work nicely, and I like the fact that I can still clip using the web clipper, when I’m on a different machine (or in Linux). They’re improving the UI so that I can actually see the URLs from web clippings (they were lost earlier). On the other hand, they screw up things every now and then, like getting rid of the “goto source links” at the bottom of the note – these were particularly useful in merged notes.
I’m thinking it’s still a love-hate relationship. But I tell you one thing – if it’s serious work, EN3 still doesn’t hold a candle to 2.2. :)