Evernote: Features, Benefits and Limitations

Introduction

In this report I will be discussing Evernote. Evernote is a cloud-based software service designed for creating, organizing, and storing various media files. Whether it’s a text document, a photo, a video, an audio file or even a web page, Evernote keeps all of your stuff stored up in the cloud through your very own personal Evernote account (Moreau, 2019). I will be reviewing the features, pricing, security measures, market share and main competitors. The benefits and limitations of Evernote and who their target market is will be discussed. I will be going over if it can be used for brand awareness and finally, I will be including a case study example of a company who finds Evernote very useful for growing their business.

A lot of people have not heard of Evernote or are unaware of its abilities, the main goal for this report is to show how Evernote has so many benefits to students, businesses and for generally everyone.

Technology Overview

Pricing:

Evernotes price range for accessing their website all differ depending on the account you want to use. For using the basic account, it is free but only gives access to limited features. The business account is €13.99 per month and per user which is generally used for bringing the team together and only allows up to two users at a time. The final one is the Premium account which is only €6.99 per month and gives you unlimited access to all the features they have to offer.

Features:

The Basic free account only allows certain features to be accessed which are limited but sufficient. It allows you to 1) Take great notes, 2) Capture Inspiration, 3) Organize your files and documents and 4) Share with others. These are all great features, but you are at a disadvantage because you cannot access them fully.

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The Business account and Premium account again share similar features that the Free account users cannot benefit from. They would be the same as the features I’ve stated above but to a greater extent, for example, they can turn notes into a presentation with just one click and see a version history of their notes whereas the Free account does not have these benefits.

 Premium users have the main advantage as they can benefit from every feature Evernote has to offer. The features that are included in the Premium account that are not in the Free or Business accounts are 1) Team Collaboration and 2) Team Administration.

All these features suggest that the more you want to gain from your Evernote account you would be better off going with Premium as the features are extremely advanced and beneficial.

Main Competitors:

Evernote has a wide range of competitors; however, their main competitors are RocketBook, Any.do and OneNote. RocketBook is Evernote’s main competitor. RocketBook is a digital notebook that allows users to make a note of their reminders and daily activities. RocketBook was founded in 2014. Similar to Evernote, RocketBook also operates in the Application Software field. RocketBook generates 1.49% the revenue of Evernote (Owler, 2019).  Any.do is a mobile based application that provides users with an online task management solution. Any.do is seen as one of Evernote’s top competitors. Any.do was founded in 2010. Like Evernote, Any.do also works within the Application Software industry. Any.do generates 4.95% of Evernote’s revenue (Owler, 2019). OneNote is a digital notebook that enables users to create to-do lists, lecture and meeting notes. OneNote has been one of Evernote’s top competitors for years. It was founded in 2003. OneNote is in the Systems Software field and has 240 fewer employees than Evernote (Owler,2019).

Brand Awareness:

Brand name awareness comes from a persistent marketing programme that puts your company name and logo in front of a target audience over and over again. By building up your brand recognition, your company is seen as equal to much larger competition and that opens a significant amount of opportunities for your organisation (Lee,2017). Evernote is an app that has skyrocketed in popularity since 2011 because its mobile app offers customers exclusive features, they cannot get anywhere else (Lee,2017). The exposure gained has expanded the company’s brand name recognition and helped the company to be seen on the same level as much larger organisations (Lee, 2017).

Security:

Evernote doesn’t maintain data centres of its own, but instead uses Google Cloud. Google Cloud provides strong data centre security, which can be attributed in part to the fact that it is  hosted in the same data centres as Google’s own information databases (Reviews, 2019). Evernote has an option for private encryption, but it’s limited to scrambling specific highlighted text. However, you can’t encrypt entire notebooks or even notes (Reviews,2019). Evernote does work with a handy third-party add-on called SafeRoom. SafeRoom, which can also be used with OneDrive, encrypts your notes with a private key that only you know, adding an additional layer of security (Reviews, 2019).

Target Market, Usability, Accessibility:

Evernote is not specified to just one target market, it is branched out to many markets. Evernote can be used for numerous things such as note taking, managing your files, saving and synchronizing images and texts and it can even be used for doing a shopping list or booking flights. There isn’t a limit with what you can do with Evernote and it is so easily accessed. Students, multi-national corporations, local businesses and even families can use Evernote for personal, public and even common use. In regard to both usability and accessibility, Evernotes actions for these are quite poor for all three accounts. For example, the poor quality of altering text into images and encryption issues are leaving users very frustrated. However, Evernote are always finding easy solutions to come around these problems.  Benefits:

1. You never have to sync local copies between devices. Premium users can also access note history to restore information from older versions of notes (Chron, 2019). If you use Evernote Business, you can use Evernote to manage project and work data among co-workers without keeping track of multiple files, emails or programs (Chron, 2019).
2. If you have an Internet-connected device, you can manage content in Evernote. Browser add-ons like the Evernote Web Clipper allow you to manage and add content to Evernote from any device (Chron, 2019).
3. Evernote has a sophisticated organization system that allows you to categorize notes into different notebooks. You can also tag all your notes for easy reference to search later (Chron, 2019).

Limitations:

1. Evernote has no calendar, it understands dates, but you can’t see a standard calendar layout for your next month’s activities (Cliffe,2017).
2. If you and perhaps 10 colleagues want to collaborate on project notes, it doesn’t handle more than one or two people in a note at any one time very well (Cliffe,2017).
3. Evernote has a very basic editor, it would be fine for email-style notes, with tables, bullets, indents and paragraph numbering but when you try to embed a picture, things get shuffled around (Cliffe,2017).

Where Evernote is good, it’s very good. The bad points depend entirely on what you expect from it (Cliffe, 2017).

Case Study Example on SCg Shoe Co using Evernote:

SCg Shoe Co relies on Evernote Business to collaborate on new product designs, share competitive research, keep track of customer and supplier information, and plan the future of the company(Caro, 2019).  Being a small company means that SCg Shoe Co can iterate quickly, with new designs turning from idea into reality in less than a day (Caro,2019). The key to this astonishing speed is Evernote. When they sketch an idea for a new shoe feature, He/she uses their phone camera to store it in Evernote. Marketing ideas, business cards, and competitive research are all instantly available to everyone in the business’ shared workspace (Caro, 2019). Like SCg’s well-designed shoes, Evernote Business incorporates technology in a way that is seamless yet allows for optimal performance. Across time zones and across continents, Evernote Business helps SCg Shoe Co organize, collaborate, and work smarter together (Caro, 2019).

Conclusion

In conclusion, I believe Evernote is a phenomenal website with a wide variety of benefits. From researching the Free account, Business account and Premium account all three show outstanding features that come in handy for everyday and personal use at reasonable prices. The level of security Evernote uses provides complete confidentiality when using the site on your computer or any device you use. Although it does have its limitations, they are only minor compared to the vast majority of benefits Evernote has to offer.

References

1. Evernote. (2019). Compare plans and get started for free | Evernote. [online] Available at: https://evernote.com/compare-plans [Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].

2.       Owler. (2019). RocketBook Competitors, Revenue and Employees – Owler Company Profile. [online] Available at: https://www.owler.com/company/getrocketbook 0[Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].

3.       Owler. (2019). Any.do Competitors, Revenue and Employees – Owler Company Profile. [online] Available at: https://www.owler.com/company/any  [Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].

4.       Owler. (2019). OneNote Competitors, Revenue and Employees – Owler Company Profile. [online] Available at: https://www.owler.com/company/onenote [Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].

5.       Lee, S. (2017). App Development For Brands: Getting Brand Recognition Isn’t Just for the Big Guys. [online] Top mobile App Developers in London, award winning development. Available at: https://thisisglance.com/app-development-for-brands-getting-brand-recognition-isnt-just-for-the-big-guys/ [Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].

6.       En.wikipedia.org. (2019). Evernote. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evernote [Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].

7. Reviews, N. (2019). Evernote Review – Updated 2019. [online] Cloudwards. Available at: https://www.cloudwards.net/evernote-review  [Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].

8.       Smallbusiness.chron.com. (2019). The Best Benefits of Evernote. [online] Available at: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-evernote-76321.html [Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].

9. Cliffe, S. (2017). [online] Quora.com. Available at: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-disadvantages-for-using-evernote [Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].
10. Caro, S. (2019). SCg Shoe Co and Evernote Are a Perfect Fit. [online] Evernote. Available at: https://evernote.com/business/customer-stories/scg-shoe-co [Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].

11.   Moreau, E. (2019). Heard of Evernote? Here’s Why You Should Be Using It. [online] Lifewire. Available at: https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-evernote-3485736 [Accessed 10 Oct. 2019].