Interview -- the future of Evernote

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Posted by Paul Korm
May 5, 2016 at 10:35 AM

Casey Newton of TheVerge interviews Evernote CEO Chris O’Neill

Newton questions Evernote’s viability, and the sustainability of the business model. Newton: “Now it seems more doubtful that a huge audience of people is willing to spend $60 or even $40 a year on note-taking software.” and “I guess I’m just looking for a little harder sell for the concerned user.” O’Neill’s answer is vague: “We’re on the right path. We’re self-sustaining. We’ve got what we need. We’ve got the team in place that’s going to make this transition happen. It’s already happening. And I think this going back to our essence is being well received, and I think it’s going to allow us to play in a much larger market.”

O’Neill mentions trimming down the feature set, transitioning Evernote from a “service to a platform” (“integrations and partnerships”), and “going back to the essence of what Evernote means: this home where you store your thoughts, your ideas, which then get moved along to action.”

I don’t think Evernote actually does much to help users “get moved along to action”. O’Neill claims “one of our laws is that your data is your data — take it!”—but I wonder if he understands that a major frustration is the “take it” part. Importers made for Apple Notes, OneNote, DEVONthink, etc. have limited success for anything other than simple text notes.

Posted by Hugh
May 5, 2016 at 01:08 PM

Well put.

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