Libin took some of the best pieces of successful apps out there and mashed them together in attempt to make Evernote a worthy replacement to other modern office giants, like Microsoft and Google. He ended up with Frankkeinstein.

About three weeks ago, I decided to leave Evernote for the third time. The move was not easy, as I’ve been an Evernote premium user for the last three years, but Liblin’s Keynote was the last straw for me.

Liblin’s keynote, full length. 80 minutes of talking, and I’m still clueless.

While Libin is a man of vision, he is not a great communicator. He thinks ahead, sometimes further ahead than other tech giants like Apple and Google, but there’s something amiss in the delivery department. His words don’t match up with the ideas, his jokes don’t take off, his body language conveys discomfort and a “I just want to be back at my computer coding” kind of attitude.

I can understand Libin. I am an introvert who hates speaking in front of large crowds. I hate presentations, and I hate “pitching” my ideas to people, probably just as Liblin does. So why does he keep on doing it? Why “sell” Evernote, if its most powerful sales strategy its user-fanatic fan base? Who decided Jobs-like Keynotes is the way to go, period?

Keynotes are meant for clear concise messages, but that’s not Liblin. What he says and what he does are two different things. And, as we will see, this identity problem has been at the heart of Evernote for quite some time.

So What is Evernote, Really?

To take Libin words from the Keynote, Evernote is about four things: Write, Collect, Find, and Present. Sexy. I wanted to believe him and get all excited, but I ended up face-palming and shaking my head. What Libin said was not wrong, it was just not accurate. It was off. It’s not what Evernote is, it’s just a part of it. And if Evernote is trying to be become a trend or a lifestyle, these four just don’t cut it. Let’s elaborate.

Write

Yes, everyone writes. Most people use Evernote for work, and most work-related writing is done in emails, which Liblin hates (I concur). But is writing really the focus of Evernote? And if it is, why only the web app was optimized for it? Why not the desktop apps? Is Evernote first and foremost a writing app, a note taking app evolved? To many users, me included, this is not the case.

Most of the information I have in Evernote isn’t originated in notes written directly with the app. I do most of the writing via Gmail and email them into Evernote, since up to this point Gmail had a better UI for writing, which in itself says a lot about the quality of writing inside the Evernote app. I also have many quick “don’t forget to pick up clean clothes today” one sentence notes. The rest of my notes are made of snapshots of documents or Skitch-made pictures. But writing? Inside Evernote? Not really.

While the new beta interface is beautiful, it’s still missing a few trivial features like hot keys and ability to insert links. When I need to write, I turn to Google Docs, which is an app that was made for writing from the ground up. I don’t see Evernote replacing the writing experience I get out of Docs any time soon.

Collect (and… organize?)

If I was Liblin, this would be my first point to bring up. Evernote is definitely about collecting. The reason I keep returning to Evernote is because it’s the fastest, simplest, and most trusty collection app I know: turn phone screen on, tap a button, done. Easy. Evernote’s web clipper is phenomenal, and Skitch is one of my favroite tools of all time.

The other thing Evernote does extremely well is organization. There are few other apps that offer easy collection and organisation, but none of them come close to Evernote. Even Google Drive, my current favroite, is left to eat dust when it comes to organizing information. We don’t just collect information into Evernote, we organize it, and through organizing information we make it ours. This is where Evernote’s charm is. And this one very important point, which makes Evernote a winner among other similar apps, was painfully missing in the Keypoint.

I sometimes hum when I go over my “inbox” notebook in Evernote and organize my ideas into tags and notebooks; it is a therapeutic ritual. We get attached to our personal information after we organize it. We are passionate about it, we write posts about it, we try to get other people to use Evernote because of it. Evernote has long become a verb in my daily vocabulary: I usually say “I need to Evernote it,” when I need to think something through.

Organize = Zen = Evernote. And Liblin didn't even mention it.

Find

Evernote has a powerful searching feature, but to be honest, I never mastered it. I still need to look up how to compose complicated searches syntax, mostly because Evernote’s search terminology is not “human” enough for me to remember. Searching on Evernote is usually secondary after organization to me.

Instead of search, I have a comprehensive system of tags. I love my tags. I sometimes find that I define things in reality as if I was using tags: a prescription a doctor just handed me, for example, would go under [.personal] [..health] […ENT], where each tag starts with dots to symbolize hierarchy (see how I like discussing my organization?)

Search? If I search for something, it means I lost it, just like Libin said. I don’t want to be in a situation where I need to search for something, I rather stay away from the search (or find) feature altogether. The only exception are saved searches, which I sometimes add to the shortcut tab.

Present

I still cringe at the thought of that. Present my Evernote to someone? My most personal, private content to someone else, let along at work? The thought makes my skin crawl. I don’t anyone to look inside my Evernote.

It’s not just a sensitive private data issue: my Evernote is full of personal jargon, abbreviations that make no sense to anyone but me. Besides, quite honestly, my notes are bare-bone ugly. They are raw ideas, not the kind of stuff I’d like to show anyone as a presentable product. Why would I ever use Evernote to present my ideas when it’s such a great personal app? In my opinion, presentations do not belong in the Evernote universe.

The most important thing about presentations to me is they are meant to be presented. My presentations look nothing like my personal notes. Can you image what kind of a disaster would that be? Innovation is messy. It is meant to be messy, that’s why we call it brainstorming. Evernote is messy. It’s personal and flexible. It makes sense to me and no one else. It’s everything a presentation should never be.

Evernote’s Identity Crisis

Looks like Liblin is aiming toward taking offices by storm. Workchat, the new web UI (but not the beloved Mac app, heavens forbid), attempts at more “human” search, Evernote business… don’t take my word for it, just look at the new slogan: “Evernote Business — Welcome to The Office of Tomorrow.” Libin took some of the best pieces of successful apps out there and mashed them together in attempt to make Evernote a worthy replacement to other modern office giants, like Microsoft and Google. He ended up with Frankkeinstein.

Evernote looks and acts differently on each device you use it with. The Mac client does things the Windows app can’t do, the android app looks nothing like the new web app, etc. Whenever I use Evernote, I feel as if I’m working against what it’s meant to do and not using some of its best features, even if it’s simply because I don’t use a Apple products.

If you ask me, Evernote is about the zen feeling in the organization that comes with it. It’s about capturing all your information first, sorting through it second, and finding it third. Grab, Sort, Fetch. Give me a 10 to 15 minute Keynote and I will tell you why Evernote is different and great. Only, I won’t. I will use a public Evernote notebook to present my ideas and let the app take the stage for me. I hate large crowds, remember?

Evernote has been looking away from what makes it so great lately. It is now a brand that tries to be everything at once, and the result is the minimum of the sum of its parts.

I hope Libin restores Evernote’s focus on being an awesome remember everything app and an idea incubator. For now however, I think he’s just too excited being on the bandwagon like everyone else.