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Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

blog.evernote.com

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Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#261

Post by Spivak »

billrobertson42 wrote: post #252
ultimape wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice thing is that the desktop app can sync/save copies locally and does private backups, but you can also save/sync and store data in OneDrive, private server, or corporate internet via a samaba share (Free version only syncs to OneDrive, but IIRC does local backup in desktop app). Architecturally it's a very impressive product and makes some pretty creative uses of the windows folder hierarchy to get it's job done.…

What is inking support?

It has really good pen/stylus support. It has completely replaced handwritten notes for me.

However, although it's amazing compared to a pen and paper it's still incredibly frustrating to work with.

* It can't handle large amounts of handwriting without igniting relatively powerful computers

* It crashes constantly when trying to balance pen input with palm rejection

* Syncing doesn't really work with non-trivial merging and doesn't handle sync errors nor errors in general well -- all of these usually end up with handwriting layered on top of itself

* Syncing is basically out of your control, you can't do partial syncs when you really need a section/page fast, and large notebooks with handwriting can take hours to sync completely. I've basically resigned to splitting my notes into many smaller notebooks.

* Handwriting on the "Desktop" version is a complete joke and so you're constantly switching between the that and the app to get good handwriting and more features.

So it's great, until it doesn't work then it's a nightmare.

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#262

Post by jay_kyburz »

benburton wrote: post #189
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? How so? I have about 60GB in total stored across Google Drive, OneDrive and DropBox. Other than OneDrive requiring me to login too frequently with the desktop folder syncing app they all work identically. I've yet to have an issue with syncing with any of them after editing documents in multiple machines. I'm not saying you're wrong I just haven't seen what you might be referring to hence why I asked.

This is going to sound stupid, but I think the major problems with Drive are the line height it uses for items within a directory and the fact that it has relatively short file pagination threshold. I had thought that Drive was confusing, because I would "create" a Doc or a Spreadsheet in the root directory and then go back to look for it and not be able to find it. I created a Spreadsheet, and named it something sta…

You are not crazy. The whole Google docs interface _is_ completely crazy. It's drives me nuts whenever I go in there and makes be frustrated because of what it could be if only they didn't have a complex about "not looking beautiful enough".

Its material design. It's just bad.

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#263

Post by jay_kyburz »

symstym wrote: post #126

Long ago I got tired of Evernote's bugs and creep of extraneous features and switched to Workflowy [1] for the majority of my general (plaintext) note-taking. I love Workflowy and can't imagine life without it. [1] https://workflowy.com/

Serious question. If you are just making plaintext notes how come you are not just using your text editor of choice? Vim, Emacs, Sublime, Atom etc etc

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#264

Post by neya »

The problem with Evernote is with the way they treat data. I found a really interesting guide hosted on Evernote[1] and I tried to download it. But no, I couldn't, because, they took the pains to block someone from downloading their notebooks and made my life so difficult in the end that I not only gave up on the conversion, but also stopped being their customer. I couldn't even print the damn thing! Ironically, they called it a shared notebook. What a joke!

I refuse to stop paying for any service that doesn't believe in open sharing through widely accepted/popular formats. The internet is alive today only because people believe in sharing information, not holding it back behind such a walled garden.

I refuse to support such companies. Not in 2015 atleast.

[1]This is the notebook in question and mind you, it's a "Shared" notebook: https://www.evernote.com/pub/contentblueprint/thecontentmark...

Ever since I left Evernote, I created a private Wordpress blog and used their sharing bookmark to store notes, snippets and everything else.

I also use Google docs and Apple Notes app for other kinds of data and it has served me well. I understand this wouldn't fit everyone's bill, but it definitely fit mine.

So, adios Evernote! Hope someone replaces you soon!

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#265

Post by PhantomGremlin »

twalling wrote: post #184
sandstrom wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the auxiliary stuff that they've dropped? (or will drop/reduce emphasis on) Genuinely curious. I've noted that they seem to have multiple apps in the AppStore doing similar things.

You know, auxiliary stuff like business socks. https://www.evernote.com/market/feature/socks-en_CA?sku=SOCK...

Unbelievable.

Too much VC money sloshing around.

I know that there's a lot of groupthink in the VC community, and so CEOs aren't always selected strictly on merit. But even I, with no executive experience whatsoever, would know not to OK something like that.

As Saint Steven once put it:

   I'm actually as proud of the things
   we haven't done as the things I have done.
   Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.
Why didn't this dialog take place in a board meeting?

   CEO: thanks for the hundreds of millions of
   dollars you've invested in us. Here's something
   new we've done. We're putting your money
   to good use.

        WE HAVE SOCKS FOR SALE!!!

   non-spineless Board of Directors:
   That's great.
   Let's all just go back to your office and help you
   clean out your desk. Then we'll escort you out of
   the building and the rest of us will reconvene to
   discuss finding a better steward for the hundreds
   of millions of dollars we've given you.
Edit: just to emphasize, the quote above was from Jobs discussing focus: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/629613-people-think-focus-me...

IMO startups that aren't making money and that keep having to do rounds of financing need to, most of all, FOCUS. Evernote board should be chanting: FOCUS! FOCUS! FOCUS!

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#266

Post by flashman »

puranjay wrote: post #86
cyberpanther wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My prediction, the next dead unicorn: Dropbox They are similar in that they haven't made anything note worthy in a while and their main product is really just a feature of bigger companies apps and services.

I tried Google Drive when it was launched. Used it a lot, but had tons of syncing issues. I ended up losing quite a bit of data. Switched to Dropbox and haven't had a single sync issue since. You're right that it's a service that is ridiculously simple in what it does, but right now, I can't imagine moving my 10GB+ of data to another platform.

> right now, I can't imagine moving my 10GB+ of data to another platform.

Any Dropbox killer will let you port over your Dropbox folder to its servers.

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#267

Post by benjiweber »

trollian wrote: post #35
cyberpanther wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My prediction, the next dead unicorn: Dropbox They are similar in that they haven't made anything note worthy in a while and their main product is really just a feature of bigger companies apps and services.

My favourite question to ask of start-ups: "have you built a product or a feature?"

What about "Have you built a business or a product?"

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#268

Post by LaurentVB »

pyre wrote: post #250
twhb wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sound like a cynic when I say this, but the root cause of failures like this is a principle fundamental to Evernote: data owned by an application, rather than data accessed by an application. If all your data exists in a file hierachy that you can browse, edit manually, and back up, then you have the safety of relying only on foundational systems for the survival of your data, and the power to use your data as you…

> root cause of failures like this is a principle fundamental to Evernote: data owned by an application, rather than data accessed by an application Not really. It's not like MS Word reading your .doc find can't corrupt it leaving you hanging if you don't have a backup. Catastrophic data loss isn't cured by the "data accessed by an application" model.

At least you can backup files. Applications, not so much... I'd add that data should be stored in a standard open format, so that an application failure won't prevent you to 1. keep your data (because backups) and 2. use your data (because open format)

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#269

Post by stephen_g »

repple wrote: post #211
jason_slack wrote: post #106

I was an Evernote Premium customer and enjoyed multi-device syncing and private notebooks. I had my own account, paid for out of my own pocket for a year. The company I worked for also decided to used Evernote and I could see our "Team" notebooks, right along with my stuff. When the company stopped using it, not only did I lose the "Team" notebooks, it took all of my personal data with it. I lost everything. Support…

Although nowhere near to your situation, I lost important meeting notes after a conference call. After making some formatting modifications (cut/copy/paste) to organize the notes, I found myself not being able to restore any text by undo-ing some of the inadvertent changes I made. Having been burned by a feature so basic to document editing as Undo, my next steps were basically to export all of my business notes and…

I had a similar experience. After two or three times losing large amounts of work, and finding absolutely no way to get back to an older revision in the free version, I stopped using the product. I may have gone to the premium service if it hadn't been so buggy.

Re: Evernote cuts 47 employees and shuts down 3 offices

#270

Post by jeo1234 »

FelixP wrote: post #178
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? How so? I have about 60GB in total stored across Google Drive, OneDrive and DropBox. Other than OneDrive requiring me to login too frequently with the desktop folder syncing app they all work identically. I've yet to have an issue with syncing with any of them after editing documents in multiple machines. I'm not saying you're wrong I just haven't seen what you might be referring to hence why I asked.

Google keeps trying to force me to open files in Docs, Sheets, etc., which is very annoying. It also tries to convert Excel files into Sheets.

This drives me mad! Even simple Excel files break Sheets. Google pushes users into using a unsuitable product for what? Short term market share gain?
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