Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote
Pitch by Phil Libin, explaining Evernote in 1 minute
Evernote is an application that makes it easier to archive notes, websites, pictures and audio. You can share and send notes on Facebook and Twitter. The application come in both a MAC and PC version with mobile versions for iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre and Windows Mobile. As you can see the with all these different versions of the same application they are bound to have a lot of beta-versions in circulation.
Evernote web version was released for Windows in invitation only beta in February 21, 2008. March 11, 2008 the Mac client arrived in invitation only beta. June 24, 2008 they went public beta. 3 years and 3 months later they have over 5 million users!
This week the Web 2.0 pattern is “Prepetual Beta”. Bill O’Reilly categorize the pattern like this :
Evernote is always on and always improving. There are so many benefits in choosing this pattern. Jason Watson's lecture in Perpetual Beta at QUT listed these benefits of using the pattern :
• Faster time to market
• Reduced risk
• Closer relationship with customers
• Real-time data to make quantifiable decisions
• Increased responsiveness
When Evernote first went out in an invitation only , the company's CEO talked directly with the users on Evernote's blog. This made Evernote much closer to the users and made it easier for the company to update the application and catch glitches in the software quickly. By releasing a beta version it has made it easier for Evernote to release more often updates of the application and not have the pressure of a finished and polished application.
Already in March 2008 Evernote wrote that they were going to concentrate much more on mobile devices and the connection between these devices and the desktop AND online application.
During 2008,2009 and 2010 they updated the different versions of the application regularly. Libin said in an interview to TUAW that they really did not announce when they faced out the beta period. This may mean that they felt that the updates that were released was stable and secure enough that the users did not really feel the difference between the application when it was beta and when it was not.
In the same interview he tells that the future looks bright with over 600 developers having the API key to the software. We can expect much more from Evernote in the future!
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Evernote has come a long way. The thing about perpetual beta is that the more users you have, the quality of your product increases, a good way to outsource the testing and trying process as Evernote has taken advantage of because ultimately, the users determine the success of the application. Great read!
ReplyDeleteTried Evernote,it's not bad, but finally switched to Springpad. But have to admit they do update alot based on user's feedbacks
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