Interview -- the future of Evernote

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.