UPDATE: My bad. I thought Evernote had made a wrong move in the implementation of Stage 1 of notebook sharing. My understanding when first trying to test the sharing was that not only did the person sharing a notebook have to be a premium user, but that even the person being ‘shared to’ had to be a premium user as well.
My understanding was wrong. Andrew from Evernote contacted me to point out that things are as I originally hoped – only the person doing the sharing needs to be a premium user, not the person on the ‘receiving’ end.
I’m very sorry for getting that wrong, and for causing confusion with this post, in its original form. Here’s the reason I got confused: when I tested this last week with Thomas, I got to where I could add him as a ‘recipient’ to share a notebook to, and saw what the screencap after the break shows …
Because the heading is ‘Recipients may’ and the text next to the radio button to grant modify access has ‘available to Premium users only’ alongside it, I thought that was a roadblock for testing with a non-Premium user.
Anyway, that is not the case. It is only saying that I need to be a Premium user to grant someone modify access. I’ve mentioned to Andrew that I think this is misleading and has potential to confuse others as it did me, and he has said that Evernote is looking at this and trying to find a good solution.
Despite being a bit embarrassed to be wrong on this, I am very glad Evernote contacted me so quickly and corrected me on my misunderstanding. I’m also glad to learn that where I thought they had put a foot wrong, they have not.
So, you can read my original thoughts below for pure curiosity sake if you like, but they are now not relevant as this was a misunderstanding. Original post text is below.
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Evernote is one of my favorite, and most heavily used, apps – across my Mac, iPhone, and in web browsers. In their first year and a bit of being around, I think they never put a foot wrong – they gained over a million subscribers in that first year, continually updated and improved the service, and seem to be on everyone’s list of go-to apps.
Last week I think they did make a wrong move though – in the course of adding a new feature that allows sharing of notebooks.
I was very happy to see their announcement saying that sharing was now being built into the app, and was excited to try it out. I knew that initially you can only share via the web interface, and that to share out a notebook you had to be a user of the Premium service ($45/year). Neither of those criterion struck me as my ideal world scenario, but I was already a Premium service user and had recently re-upped the year subscription for it, so I wasn’t too fussed.
The big blow came when I tried to test it out with Thomas (ragart) last week. I had understood that the sharer had to be a Premium service user, but thought the ‘sharee’ – the person I wanted to share with – did not have to be. Well, he doesn’t, but as a basic user, I cannot give him any more than viewing rights to a notebook. I cannot let him edit or delete notes.
Honestly, that went down like a lead balloon for me. I told Thomas at the time, it brought two words to mind: Google Docs.
I’m all in favor of Evernote ‘monetizing’ and making some money for an excellent service. I was happy to pay the Premium fee for a little bit of extra security and a greater monthly upload limit. Those seem like legitimate choices that fit well for the cutoff between basic and premium service. Sharing does not. And view-only is not real sharing in my (note) book.
I use both Google Docs and Evernote quite a lot, but this move will drive me more towards Google Docs. I hope it is a policy that Evernote are still looking at, and that they may choose to revise it sometime soon.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks a lot. I was thinking about becoming a premium user in order to share stuff, but if this is the case, I'll pass!
Brandon – post updated – my mistake here – only the original notebook owner, the one doing the sharing, needs to be a premium user – the 'recipient' does not need to be.
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