In addition to the VCs and professional investors who participated, we set aside 10% of the round for a small group of founders and CEOs who have been my friends, mentors and main sources of inspiration ever since I moved to Silicon Valley five years ago. I’m deeply honored that these six great entrepreneurs accepted our invitation to invest in Evernote and help us build a hundred year startup:

• Marc Benioff, Founder and CEO of Salesforce.com
• Jerry Yang, Founder and CEO of Yahoo
• Hiroshi Mikitani, Founder and CEO of Rakuten
• Sky Dayton, Founder and CEO of Earthlink, eCompanies, Boingo and Helio
• Loïc Le Meur, Founder and CEO of Seesmic and LeWeb
• Alexis Ohanian, Co-founder of Reddit and Hipmunk

Each of these people managed to build companies from scratch that succeeded in changing the world and, in many cases, are still changing it.

Marc was my main inspiration for thinking about the cloud and was one of the first people to turn me on to the magic of Japan. Jerry built one of the first, great Internet companies and gave me invaluable advice for keeping the culture of a team intact through rapid growth. Mikitani-san is the strongest thinker I’ve ever met on what it means to be a truly international company; a company that doesn’t just sell everywhere, but builds everywhere as well. Sky is the textbook serial entrepreneur, a great simplifier of complexity, and once helped me meet an important New Year’s Resolution. Loïc is a true statesman, a genius at spotting talent and one of the first people to really give Evernote a boost. Alexis is the leading authority on making information overload fun, adorable corporate mascots and how to make products beloved by Stephen Colbert.

When I think about what these people have created, I am reminded that Evernote is just at the very start of our journey. We’re 1% done and have a colossal amount of work ahead. All of our accomplishments over the past five years are just a drop in the bucket and we aren’t really sure of what we’re doing. This is humbling and slightly scary.

And then I remember that until they managed to build world-changing, multi-billion-dollar public companies out of nothing, they’d never done it before either.

And that’s an encouraging thought.

Get Evernote for Android

The All-New Look of Evernote for Android

Whether it’s a completely makeover or a simple touch-up, every single screen of the app have been redesigned to be easier to use, faster and more intuitive.

The new Home Screen
The new home screen is completely different from anything we’ve done before. The screen combines note creation options with buttons that take you directly into notebooks, tags and places (more on that later).

What makes the new home screen great, is how easy it is to use and how fast you can jump to it—swipe right or tap the elephant and you’re back.

Improved note and notebook list
The app’s note and notebooks lists got a major upgrade in this update. We redesigned the look of the note list to make it easier to browse content and to find what you’re looking for. For the notebook list, we brought together your personal notebooks and the ones that others have shared with you into a single view.

Action Bars
The latest update includes new contextual Action Bars that runs along the bottom of several screens. The bar shows options that relate to the screen that you’re on. For example, if you’re viewing a note, the Action Bar allows you to edit, share, tag, and perform other note-related actions. On the note list, tapping the Action Bar can launch a new note, search through notes, and change the sort order. Look for the Action Bar whenever you want to do more on the screen that you’re in.

Easy reading

We believe that the best interfaces are the ones that appear when you need them and become invisible when you don’t. That thinking led to our new note view. When reading a note, as you start scrolling, all navigation slides away, giving you a full-screen reading view. Then, when you need to edit, share or return to the note list, just tap the screen.

Swipe navigation

Horizontal swiping is now a major way to navigate through the app. When you’re viewing Notebooks, Tags, and Places, horizontal swiping moves you from one category to the next. If you’re in the home screen, a swipe to the left jumps you into the note list. Swipe back any time and you return to the home screen.

Places!

If you have “location services” enabled on your device, then Evernote assigns a place to each note you make. The new Places screen displays notes by creation location. Tap the map icon in the Action Bar to see your notes on a map.

New Settings

One of the other very visible interface features is the appearance of your username in the top left corner of the home screen. Tapping the username, shows your remaining monthly allowance and gives you access to additional settings.

Next to the username is a profile icon. This icon shows your account type: it’s a simple profile icon for Free users, and shiny crest if you’re Premium. In addition, at a glance, the icon shows you if you’re nearing your monthly allowance limit.

Much more…

As always, the visible things are only part of the story. There are lots of enhancements and fixes that will make your experience of using Evernote the best it’s ever been. Also, be sure to tap on the feature discovery lightbulb to see what’s new in this update and to get other useful tips.

After welcoming our Home Cooking Ambassador to the Ambassador Program, we naturally wanted to cook something. Since so many of you already use Evernote and Evernote Food to manage recipes and capture your cooking and eating experiences, we thought it would be fun for Lauren to lead a community cook-along event that lets us connect by sharing our experiences using Evernote and Evernote Food.

The First Evernote Cook-Along

For our first Evernote Cook-Along, Lauren has chosen a recipe that can be customized in a myriad of different ways. We’re making crepes! To participate, you can use Evernote and Evernote Food. Here’s how it’s going to work:

1. The Cook-Along will be happening on Saturday, May 19th. If you’re cooking along, RSVP to the event on Facebook. Leading up to the Cook-Along, and over the course of the event, post your favorite crepe recipes, ask Lauren questions, share kitchen tips, and Evernote-related tips.
2. Use the Evernote Web Clipper to clip Lauren’s basic crepe recipe to your Evernote account, so you can easily reference it while you’re in the kitchen.
3. Customize the crepe recipe however you like: make them sweet, make them savory. Top with sugar, butter, eggs, Nutella…whatever you like! Choose and purchase your ingredients ahead of the event.
4. On Saturday, May 19th, it’s time to get cooking! Bring whatever device you’re using to reference the recipe into your kitchen for easy access to your Evernote account. As you’re cooking, use Evernote Food (or Evernote on your mobile device) to capture snapshots of the process. Then, be sure to snap some photos of the finished product.
5. Share your creation to your Facebook page, Twitter, and your blog (if you have one!) anytime between May 19th and May 26th. Use the hashtag #evernotecookalong when sharing your notes.

To share your Meal from Evernote Food: Tap the arrow icon in the lower right-hand corner. Select Facebook or Twitter. Be sure to add the hashtag #evernotecookalong! All of your Evernote Food notes automatically sync to your Evernote account, so you have the opportunity to make them public. Select ‘Copy Share URL to Clipboard,’ then use this link to post to the Cook-Along Facebook page, your blog, and the Lifestyle Forum.

To share photos from your Evernote account: Select Post to Facebook, Post to Twitter, or Copy Share URL to Clipboard.

Win Prizes!

Over the course of the Cook-Along, we’ll select 5 random winners, who will all receive a bag of Evernote goodies including a t-shirt, tote bag, stickers, and more.

Let’s get cooking!

Want more ways to connect with Evernote Ambassadors? Visit our Ambassador Page and Lifestyle forum.

Have an idea for a community Evernote event? Share it in the comments!

Evernote Acquires Penultimate
The beautifully simple handwriting app for iPad is now a part of the Evernote family. Learn more about this new addition.

The Evernote Trunk Conference is back!
Mark your calendars: on August 24th, the Evernote Trunk Conference makes its return to San Francisco. This year, expect developer and user sessions, as well as weekend events led by our Ambassadors! Get the details and RSVP.

Ben Zotto, Penultimate Founder, Says ‘The Future is Bright’
Penultimate founder Ben Zotto sounds off on what’s in store for Penultimate, now that it has joined the Evernote family. Read Ben’s thoughts.

Evernote for Mac Update: Card View, Word Count, New Save Features, and More
The new Evernote for Mac includes many user-requested new features and updates. Learn more and get it for your Mac today.

Evernote for iOS Update: Redesigned Screens, Improved Usability, New Settings, and More
It was a big week for product updates; Evernote for iOS includes redesigned note screens, improved editing, new ways to save attachments from your Evernote account and more. See what’s new and download.

Evernote Launches Separate Chinese Service
We launched a completely separate Chinese Service called Yinxiang Biji (印象笔记) to give our users in China a great Evernote experience. Read more about it.

We’re excited to announce our second annual Evernote Trunk Conference. This year, it’s taking place in San Francisco on August 24th. Reserve your spot today »

The goal of ETC is to bring together the global community of Evernote developers, users, and partners for a single day of great talks, sessions, and workshops. It’s an opportunity to exchange ideas, expand your Evernote knowledge, and build lasting connections with fellow users and developers.

Focused on you

We want to make ETC a great experience for the entire community, so we’re planning dedicated, separate tracks for developer and users. You’ll get to hear from members of the Evernote team, developers, Trunk partners, Evernote Ambassadors, and many more. Our complete conference agenda will be available very soon.

More than a conference. It’s a destination.

Last year, hundreds of people came to San Francisco for our one-day conference. This year, we decided to make ETC a memorable weekend. In addition to the conference, we’re working with our Ambassadors and team members to build a schedule of Evernote-themed activities, ranging from walking tours around San Francisco to Evernote boot camps.

DEVCUP

A couple of weeks ago we kicked off Devcup, our annual developer competition. Your great Evernote integration idea can win you a piece of $100,000 in prizes. Winners will be announced at ETC. For more information, visit the Devcup site.

Join us

Don’t miss this opportunity to join fellow Evernote enthusiasts, members of the developer community, partners, and Evernote employees from around the world to learn, get inspired, and geek out over all things Evernote.

• When: Friday, August 24th 2012
• Where: San Francisco Design Center – 635 8th Street, San Francisco, CA
• Price: $100
• RSVP now »

Don’t forget to let your friends know that you’ll be attending ETC on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.

See you there!

We’ve been hard at work on this for months: building a great team in Beijing, engineering new products, and setting up our new data centers. Minutes ago, we flipped the switch.

Here’s what it’s all about, why we did it, and what it means for you.

Why launch a separate service in China?

Our goal is to improve the lives of everyone around the world by giving them a second brain and a perfect memory. Our user base in China is growing quickly; with over a million users, it’s already our third largest country and at the current rate it’ll soon top Japan to move into second place. We’re really pleased with this, but, frankly, using Evernote in China hasn’t been a great experience.

The most common request we get from our Chinese users is to make Evernote faster, more reliable and better integrated with the rest of the Chinese Internet. Due to poor network connectivity between the US and China, there’s only one way to definitively fix the problem: have a separate service in China. That’s what we built.

In addition to dramatically improving the Chinese user experience, Yinxiang Biji also offers a number of other benefits:

• The new Yinxiang Biji API will make it much easier for Chinese developers to build great apps and integrations. Once built, developers will be able to choose whether to have their apps work with Yinxiang Biji, Evernote, or both.
• The service will work with Chinese partners and payment methods to match Chinese Internet expectations.
• Yinxiang Biji will provide Chinese-language customer support based in China.

Evernote and Yinxiang Biji will be developed in parallel and share much of the code-base and features. Initially, Yinxiang Biji will not have support for sharing and social features until we complete the integration with Chinese social networking companies (Evernote’s current sharing and social features don’t work well in China anyway and are rarely used). All of our own major apps will be updated to know how to log in to either service.

What does this mean for our users inside China?

People in China now have the choice to create an account on Yinxiang Biji. Existing Evernote users may copy some or all of their notes and notebooks to a new account on the Chinese service, which will give these users all the speed and reliability advantages of the local service. Instructions on copying data to Yinxiang Biji are available here. The existing Evernote service will continue to work exactly as before, of course.

What does this mean for our users outside of China?

Absolutely nothing. Evernote and Yinxiang Biji are completely separate services with no connection to one another. Evernote data will not be stored on Yinxiang Biji servers, and vice-versa. Even though the two services are distinct, we think that over time the global community of Evernote users will benefit from great apps and integrations developed for Yinxiang Biji and configured to work with Evernote.

What about data privacy?

We will always strive to preserve the privacy of your data. Our three laws of data protection apply to both Yinxiang Biji and the Evernote Service:

• Your data is yours
• Your data is protected
• Your data is portable

You can read a longer explanation of our three laws here, but the short version is that we will not share your data with any partners, analyze or data-mine it for the purposes of serving ads or other “big data” monetization schemes, or put up any obstacles to you getting your data out at any time.

This still leaves the question of government access. The laws and practices controlling data stored on servers in China are evolving rapidly and Yinxiang Biji will comply with Chinese regulations applicable to the service. This means users of Yinxiang Biji should be aware that Chinese authorities may have the right to access their data according to current regulations.

The existing Evernote service will continue to operate out of servers located in California under the protection of US privacy laws.

Our big adventure

Doing business in China is notoriously hard for western companies. We understand this and we understand that we don’t have all the answers. We thought about taking the easy road and ignoring China altogether, but that approach just isn’t Evernote-y. In a perfect world, great companies with roots in Silicon Valley should be able to succeed in China and great companies with roots in Beijing should be able to succeed in San Francisco. Most importantly, global products designed and developed through the cross-pollination of the world’s top centers of entrepreneurship and innovation will be better than products built in a vacuum.

We don’t live in a perfect world, but through hard work, innovation, optimism and transparency, we think we can nudge it along a little.

I’m really excited about this launch.

If you have questions, please ask them in the comments.

Get Evernote for Mac

The New Card View

We replaced our thumbnail view with a completely new Card View. The design of this view will be familiar to Evernote for iPad users and those that have tried using Evernote for Mac in fullscreen mode.

There are several reasons to love Card View. First, you get much more information about the content of the note at a glance. If your note contains only text, then you’ll see the first couple of sentences in the card. If it’s just an image, then the card will present a well-formatted thumbnail.

The Card View action bar
At the top of the Card View, there are several useful options. At left, you can select a sorting method. In the middle, choose from one of two card sizes. On the right, choose to hide the note pane and expand Card View. You should definitely try that last one. Hide the note pane and also hide the left notebook panel using the Favorites Bar. The result: a full app window of note cards, which is a great new way to browse your notes.

Word and character count!

You asked for it, and here it is. Evernote for Mac now has word and character count totals for each note. To view the counts, tap on the “i” in the top right corner of a note. The numbers are displayed in the Size section. To view the counts quickly, try the CMD+Shift+I keyboard shortcut.

Redesigned account info screen

We spruced up the account info screen inside the app to make it easier to read important information, such as your remaining monthly allowance (60MB for Free users and 1GB for Premium). Also, Free users can now upgrade to Premium by clicking a new upgrade button in the account info screen.

Save all attachments

Dragging something out of a note onto your desktop is simple enough when you only want one file, but what if you want to export all the files and attachments in a note? Now, we have the answer. Click on a note, or select multiple notes, then right click and choose Save Attachments. You’ll be asked to choose a destination folder. That’s all. Every file, image, PDF, and audio clip are now in that folder. This is just one of the many ways that we make it easy for you get your content out of Evernote.

Better printing

You’ve asked us to add more context to notes that you print and, in this update, we did. In the print settings, click on Show Details. Next, click the checkbox labeled Print Headers. Now, your notes will print with all their header information, including title, dates, tags, and notebook.

Date and time stamp

We’ve added a couple of useful keyboard shortcuts that let you add a quick date and time into the body of a note as you type.

• For date: Press CMD+Shift+D
• For time: Press CMD+Shift+Option+D

These shortcuts are great if you’re taking accurate meeting minutes or trying to associate your lecture audio recording with the notes you’ve taken. If you’d like to change the date formatting, you can set it in the new Formatting tab in Evernote Settings.

And much more…

In addition to all of these great new capabilities, we also improved bullets and numbered lists, made result highlighting in PDFs more accurate, and fixed tons of other issues. You’ll find the app is more stable and reliable than ever. We hope you like our latest version of Evernote for Mac. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Get Evernote for iOS »

iOS 5 iPhone: Major note editor upgrade and redesign for iOS 5

The first thing iPhone users will notice is the completely redesigned note editor. We’ve spent the past few months exploring ways to make the interface more intuitive and easier to use, and we’re very excited about the result.

Attachments on top
All of the attachment options now run along the top of the note editor, so you can add a photo or audio recording with fewer taps.

Intuitive text styling
The text styling options are now accessible from a new tab that appears above the keyboard. When you tap on the styling tab, the keyboard is replaced with formatting options. This way you can place the cursor where you want, set the style, then flip back to the keyboard to keep typing.

Redesigned note info
Tapping the “i” in the top right corner of the note brings up the newly redesigned note info screen. Here you can quickly set the notebook, add tags and see the location of the note on a map.

iOS 5 iPhone: Better checkboxes

Making lists in Evernote is really straightforward. Create a checkbox from the formatting tab, and off you go. With this update, we made checkboxes more intuitive, and more useful to the super checkbox users out there. First, when you’re in a checkbox list and create a new line, Evernote will automatically add a checkbox to that line. Additionally, we now allow you to indent your checkboxes, great if you’re making lists within lists.

Improved attachments

Above, we mentioned the new location of the attachment options in the note editor, but that’s not all we changed. We improved how these functions work, too.

New recorder
The audio recorder has been beautifully redesigned. Now, when you tap the microphone icon, the entire top bar transforms into the recorder, showing you audio levels and recording time. When you’re finished recording, tap Done.

Your recording will appear in the body of the note. You can even play it back right away to make sure you like what you captured. If you don’t, simply delete the audio and record again.

Photo Stream
If you use iCloud to sync your images between your devices, then you have a Photo Stream group in your photo library. The new Evernote update allows you to attach these images to your notes.

More control

The latest update also adds a couple of new settings that let you better control your Evernote experience.

Auto-titling settings
In Settings, you can now turn Note Auto-titling ON or OFF. Note Auto-titling is the feature that predicts a note title based on your location, calendar events or contents of the note. The feature is on by default, but if you prefer not to get title suggestions, then simply turn it off.

Save to Camera Roll
One more feature that you can now disable is automatically adding snapshots you make in Evernote to your Camera Roll. If you would prefer not having the same image in Evernote and in your Camera Roll, then disable the function and the app will only save the snapshot in Evernote.

And more…

In addition to all the visible changes described above, there are lots of improvements and fixes that make this version of Evernote even more reliable. There’s more to come.

I’m Ben, the creator of Penultimate, and today I’m proud to announce that Penultimate is becoming part of the Evernote family. Penultimate is the best and best-selling handwriting app for iPad. Evernote is a company whose mission is to help you “remember everything,” with a popular and powerful service for creating notes of all kinds and making them searchable and findable anywhere. They have a longstanding commitment to handwriting recognition — members of the core Evernote team have been building handwriting technology since the Apple Newton (really). Penultimate already offers basic Evernote integration, and tons of people are right now using Evernote’s recognition, search, and organization for their Penultimate notes.

Realizing that Evernote and Penultimate have such obviously complementary technologies, we’re teaming up. Evernote has acquired Penultimate, and I’ll be joining Evernote to help bring their significant resources to bear on making Penultimate better, faster. You’ll also start seeing Penultimate (finally!) on other devices, and we’ll be bringing great handwriting into other parts of Evernote.

Importantly, Penultimate is not going away: it remains an independent application, and will continue to espouse the virtues of ease of use, elegance, and “that special something” that have kept you coming back. But I also think you’ll be thrilled, and even surprised, by how much more the app will be able to do for you as we work together to improve it and connect more profoundly with Evernote’s capabilities.

Penultimate has come a long way since its launch as the original dedicated handwriting app for Apple’s first iPad two years ago. It now offers scores of powerful features within that same accessible and attractive design. It’s remained a top-selling app, and millions of people have showed us that they’re doing things with Penultimate we never imagined. I’ve been amazed and humbled by all of the passionate users I’ve encountered — you have offered your valuable feedback, support, and candid (!) critiques. Penultimate would not be what it is without you. I believe that this partnership makes a lot of sense, and Penultimate is only going to get better from here. Not just incrementally better, but WAY better, and quickly. I’m excited about the future of the app, and I sincerely hope that you will be too.

Cocoa Box’s Penultimate, the beautifully simple handwriting app for iPad, has been one of our favorites pretty much since it came out two years ago, so we’re very thrilled to announce that we’ve acquired the company and that Penultimate is now part of the Evernote family!

Penultimate is hugely popular. In fact, according to Apple, it’s the #4 best-selling paid iPad app of all time. When you have such a great product, the last thing you want to do is mess with it. That’s why Penultimate creator, Ben Zotto, is joining Evernote to head up future app development. Penultimate will stay a separate, elegant application and will get many much-requested Evernote-y improvements including full search and synchronization. Ben will also lead the effort to put handwriting and digital ink functionality into other Evernote products and platforms, so you’ll see handwriting cross-pollination popping up everywhere.

We couldn’t be more excited that Penultimate is joining Evernote. Our team has been working on handwriting recognition and digital ink forever and it feels like for the very first time, the experience of writing on a tablet is actually great. That’s what Penultimate has done. Now that we can add Evernote’s technology and expertise, it’s about to get a lot more powerful. Just wait till you see what we’ve got in store.

Penultimate is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.

How a Registered Nurse Uses Evernote as a Portable Resources Binder and Teaching Tool
San Francisco registered nurse Laarni San Juan uses Evernote to store her work resources and carries around her digital ‘binder’ to access important reference materials on the go. Read her story.

A Faster, Leaner, Greener Evernote
We’ve made some updates to our service behind-the-scenes that effectively resulted in a 50% reduction in power consumption for new users. See how we made it happen.

Evernote Raises $70 Million Financing
A note from our CEO about our long-term goal to build a hundred year startup that can be everyone’s second brain. Read Phil’s note.

Quick Tip Friday: Simultaneous Search, A Better Way to Find Things
Search your Evernote account at the same time as your search engine to find things you might already have. Learn how you can start using this feature today.

Think of it this way: let’s say I’m looking for a cake recipe. As I’m doing my research using Google, Bing, or Yahoo, I can actually see the notes in my account which contain search terms like ‘cake,’ ‘chocolate,’ ‘layer cake,’ etc. Clicking on the notes found in my Evernote account in my search engine view takes me to my Evernote account on the Web, where I can see if I already have notes relevant to my search.

To enable this feature:

• Download the Evernote Web Clipper for Chrome or Firefox. Enable Simultaneous Search.
• To use Simultaneous Search feature in Chrome, right click the Web Clipper icon, then select Options from the dropdown. From there, check the box next to “Use Simultaneous Search.” In Firefox, go to Tools > Add-ons from the Tools dropdown. Select Extensions, then, click the Preferences button and check the box next to “Use Simultaneous Search.”
• Anytime you are signed into Evernote on the Web, you’ll be able to use the Simultaneous Search feature to search your account simultaneously with the Web.

Have you tried this feature? If so, how are you using it?

This financing brings us another small step closer to our long-term goal of building a hundred year startup that can be everyone’s second brain. As was true when we raised our previous round last July, we took this financing not because we need the money to fund operations, but because we see building our financial infrastructure to be a crucial component of remaining an innovative and durable company. We’ll use the money to ramp the speed of product improvements, expand internationally, and make future strategic acquisitions. Most importantly, we wanted to have the resources on hand to ensure that we don’t get distracted by anything for the next several years; whatever happens in the economy or the market, we can stay 100% focused on building the best products and providing the best user experience.

I am both proud and humbled (if you don’t think this combination is possible, try raising $70 million) that some of the world’s best late-stage investors have decided to help Evernote in our quest. Together with the exceptional guidance we’ve been getting all along from our existing investors — Sequoia Capital, Morgenthaler Ventures, Docomo Capital, and others — this new expertise will help us achieve our next level of success.

Of course, none of this could have been possible without the passion and support of our users. The entire Evernote team thanks you from the bottom of our hearts for finding us, sticking with us, and telling us — repeatedly and loudly — how to make Evernote great. We’re listening.

The results of these changes allow us to consolidate hardware, house more users per server, and get more efficient use of our drives.

Besides making the service more responsive, these updates also resulted in a 50% reduction in per user power consumption for new users, which is pretty huge.

We tend to focus our attention on new features and functionality, so it’s great to share some of the things that are going on behind the scenes.

Get all the details on the changes here »

Bio

Laarni San Juan is a public health nurse. Her job involves educating low-income pregnant women and their families on everything from where they can access social services to how they breastfeed their child. Evernote has become her digital binder. Learn how she uses it at the office and out in the field.

Announcing Our Second Annual Developer Competition: The Evernote Devcup!
$100k in prizes are up for grabs by developers who build the next great apps that let millions of users do more with Evernote. Learn more about how to get involved, attend one of our worldwide meetups, and exchange ideas with fellow developers. Learn more

Evernote for Songwriting: Song & Story
A songwriter who tells stories through song uses Evernote for managing his songwriting process and his business. Check out the song he wrote and produced for Evernote, and read his tips for using Evernote in the creative process. Read Aubrey’s story.

Skitch Update: Easier Sharing to Evernote
Skitch, our app for getting your point across with fewer words, now lets you send your annotated images and screenshots to Evernote faster than ever. Learn more about the update.

Say It With Fewer Words: How to Build a Custom Bike with Skitch (New Skitch Series)
In our new Skitch series, we explore how you can use the app to communicate visually, and save time writing all of those back and forth emails. Check it out.

Evernote product manager Jamie Hull is a cyclist. She was working with a Portland, Oregon-based bike manufacturer to build her perfect wooden bike. With Skitch, she was able to ask her questions and show what she wanted by grabbing images from the company’s website. The process took seconds. Imagine how long it would have taken without Skitch.

Jamie was able to confirm the names of her desired wood types (wenge? birch?), then point out which wood types would be used for each bike part. She grabbed the screenshots, added text and arrows using Skitch. Then, simply dragged the images into an email.

What’s your Skitch story? Please share it in the comments!

Get Skitch from the Mac App Store »

Choose your notebook

Ever since our last update, anything you share with Skitch can also be saved into your Evernote account. Now, you can choose which notebook those images are saved to. Here’s how it works:

• Click the gear icon in the top left corner of the Skitch window and choose Preferences
• In the Share tab make sure that your Evernote account is selected
• Click Choose… to pick your destination notebook

From then on, whatever you share from Skitch will also show up in the notebook you’ve chosen.

Click the elephant

We also updated the behavior of the little Evernote elephant in the Skitch window. Clicking it now sends your annotated image right into your Evernote account, directly to the default notebook or the one you defined using the steps above.

We’ll have lots more updates to share with you soon. Let us know what you think.

Get Skitch from the Mac App Store »

Bio

Aubrey McGowan is a singer/songwriter and the co-founder of Song & Story, a company that helps people tell their stories through  song. Launched in January 2011, Song & Story is made up of Aubrey, his wife, and several collaborators who write and produce songs for individuals and organizations. Aubrey shares how Evernote helps him with his creative process as well as managing his business and home life. He even wrote a song about it!

Download the MP3

I use Evernote, Everywhere

• iPad
• Windows
• iPhone
• Mac

I use Evernote for…

As a songwriter, I spent a lot of time looking for a way to manage my songwriting ideas. I’ve tried everything from software to paper notebooks, but couldn’t find anything that really clicked until I began to use Evernote. The flexibility of the app, it’s various features, and the many locations from which you can access your information really made it the perfect tool for me to manage my business and my life. I use Evernote religiously. Here’s a look at how it helps me:

1. My wife and I share multiple notebooks which are divided into two Notebook Stacks. I organize notes into everything related to songwriting or the business. That way, virtually everything I need access to on any given day can be found in my Evernote account. Sharing notebooks with my wife means if she records a melody at home, it syncs and I’m able to listen to it even if I’m at the office. It makes working together a much more seamless process, especially since we’re not always in the same place at the same time.
2. I draft and organize songs in Evernote. I create various drafts of songs in Evernote and organize songs in separate, Stacked notebooks that include songs in progress and completed songs. The completed songs notebook also serves as a portfolio.
3. We manage our business in Evernote. We have several notebooks under the Notebook Stack ‘Business’ which includes everything related to running our business: from invoices to web graphics, my wife and I always have access to documents, websites, expenses, and more.
4. Evernote helps us maintain a paperless lifestyle. Whether it’s a scribbled note on a napkin or a document, Evernote lets me manage my paperwork without the paper stack. I can snap a photo of an item, or scan in a document. Once it’s in Evernote, I can tag and file into appropriate notebooks so I’m always able to find what I’m looking for. [Learn more about paperless lifestyle from our Paperless Living Ambassador]
5. I use my Evernote email address hourly. My Evernote email helps me manage the things outside of my Evernote account, organize them, and find them later. I forward important emails, articles I want to read, invoices, and more from my email to my Evernote account, where I sort them into notebooks. [Learn how to send emails to your Evernote account.]
6. I keep track of my favorite products in Evernote. I have a songwriting notebook that I love. When I run out of room, I know exactly where to order a new one because I have the ISBN of that notebook and vendor’s website saved in my Evernote account.
7. I use Evernote as a reader. I have a notebook called ‘Enrichment’— it’s where I keep things I don’t have time to read, or always want to go back to. Before I started clipping and emailing articles to my Evernote account, my reader was a mass of things and I’d never know where to even start. Now, if someone has 10 blog posts and I know I only want to read one of them, I can just clip the article using the Evernote Web Clipper, or email it from my inbox to my Evernote account.

Evernote in the collaborative song writing process

When we work with a client on creating a song, we take a very collaborative approach. The first step is always having them fill out a survey about the kind of story they want the song to tell and the sorts of emotions they think it should evoke (Should the recipient feel happy? Should he/she be called to action?). From there, we engage in a lot of back and forth before we get to the final delivery stage. We are excited about engaging people in the storytelling process, not just being recipients of a finished project. Evernote helps us work with our customers every step of the way.

Evernote is our jumping off point to collecting ideas and also for working through rough drafts with the customer. We used Shared Notes to get customers involved in the storytelling process.They’re able to see our progress, as we record ideas and scratch tracks by simply clicking on the Shared Note Link. If it’s not hitting the right spot, we continue to work back and forth.

Evernote for everything else

In addition to using Evernote to manage my business and songwriting, I also use it as a catchall for pieces of information that would normally have no proper place. I have a notebook called ‘misc/personal/docs.’ I use it to save account numbers and things I always forget. For example, I have a photo of a sticky note with the dimensions of our countertop and another with the account number of my Internet service. I have the size of my tires on my car, the model number for the lightbulb in my car and serial numbers for pieces of equipment I have, all handy in Evernote, instead of sitting in a junk drawer, where I’d inevitably never find them. Lastly, I’m working through some online courses to finish my degree and everything I do, I keep in Evernote. When it comes time to take an open book test, I’m able to search through my Evernote account at lightning speed.

The song that I wrote for Evernote really captures what Evernote is for me. I chose to personalize the tool because it’s truly my constant companion.

We’re excited to announce our second annual worldwide developer competition: the Evernote Devcup! Devcup challenges software developers and designers to create awesome products that help over 25 million users do more with Evernote. We’ll be awarding over $100,000 in prizes and giving finalists the chance to present their work to the attendees of this year’s Evernote Trunk Conference in San Francisco.

Here’s what we’re giving away:

• Gold – $20,000 cash prize
• Silver – $15,000 cash prize
• Bronze – $5,000 cash prize
• 6 finalists – $10,000 cash prize, and airfare and lodging to attend ETC 2012

What are we hoping to see?

Great apps combine captivating functionality with beautiful, intuitive design. The entries that we select as Devcup finalists will be apps that we expect tens of thousands of people to use every day to capture and recall the important things in their lives. We can’t possibly enumerate every good idea that we’ve ever heard, but here are some general themes to help you get started thinking about what to build:

• Evernote Food and Evernote Hello are mobile applications that provide users with a dedicated experience for a specific Evernote use case. What other use cases could benefit from a customized application, and what type of rich, structured information would they contribute to a user’s Evernote account? What about a movie app that manages the list of movies that you want to see and your thoughts on those that you’ve seen, and combines that information with outside data from your Netflix queue and Rotten Tomatoes?
• Products like Nike+ and Fitbit have brought Quantified Self and lifelogging into the mainstream. These products generate an immense amount of data about us. How can Evernote fit in? What type of data could such products store in Evernote, and how could you incorporate all of the other information in a user’s Evernote account to enrich their life log?
• One of last year’s finalists noted that there are two types of notes that we create in Evernote. Some, such as shopping lists, start out being important but diminish in value over time. Others, such as records of great meals, aren’t that valuable in the short term, but become wonderful memories later. Dividing the world of Evernote notes into these two categories, what types of application could be built to focus on one area or the other?
• Evernote’s products are used by tens of millions of people around the world. Only a third of our users are in the United States, and about a third are in non-Western countries. We design products that we think have universal appeal and utility, but there are probably also opportunities for apps that serve the needs of a specific national or cultural group. What app would you build for users in your country that isn’t necessarily as obvious to an outsider?
• Evernote users love to learn about our products. Books, blogs and videos that help users get started with Evernote or get more out of it are extremely popular – there are currently 33 printed books about Evernote in Japan alone! What can you build to teach Evernote or guide great Evernote habits?

These themes barely scratch the surface of the opportunities that are available. Whether or not you plan to participate in Devcup, we want to hear what apps you’d like to see built for this year’s competition. Join the discussion at devcup.evernote.com or attend one of our worldwide meetups.

A look back

Last year, nearly 1,000 developers from around the world participated in the developer competition. Many were from the US, but almost a quarter were from Asia, another quarter were from Europe, and we had meaningful participation in South and Central America. All six of the finalist teams attended ETC and presented their submissions. You can watch their presentations at evernote.com/about/etc. Last year’s Grand Prize winner was Touchanote, an Android app that allows you to associate real life objects with your Evernote notes using NFC. Another one of the finalists, Notable Meals, formed the basis of Evernote Food. A third, Colorstache, allowed you to search your Evernote notes by color.

The details  

Any piece of software that integrates with an Evernote API is eligible for Devcup. You can build for desktop, mobile or the web. Here are the key dates:

• Now through June 25th - Form a team, come up with an idea, build an app!
• June 25th - Submission deadline
• July 23rd - 6 finalists announced
• Late summer - Finalists present their entries at the Evernote Trunk Conference; the Grand Prize winner and runners up are chosen

Devcup meetups around the world!

To help you get started, we’re holding a number of meetups around the world. These are a great place to brainstorm and discuss the feasibility of an idea with our developer relations staff, connect with others who are participating in Devcup, and learn more about Evernote. We’ll also be holding webinars if you’re unable to attend in person. For a list of events, and to find all of the information that you need about Devcup, join the conversation at devcup.evernote.com.

Quick Tip Friday: Emailing Into Your Evernote Account
Did you know that you have a unique Evernote email address that you can use to send important information from your inbox to your Evernote account? Find out how.

Evernote Web Clipper for Chrome Now With Smart Filing and Clipping to Shared Notebooks
The updated Evernote Web Clipper for Chrome is smarter than ever. Shave time off your web clipping and get to know it. Learn more about the updated Evernote Web Clipper for Chrome.

10 Tips for Using Evernote to De-Stress College from Student Ambassador Megan Cotter
New Student Ambassador Megan Cotter shares her tips for staying on top of it all when you’re in college or university. Read her tips and follow her activities for the Evernote Ambassador Program. Read more.

14 New Evernote Wallpapers Designed for Your iPad’s Retina Display
Longtime Evernote user and designer Adelle Charles has created a beautiful new set of Evernote wallpapers for you to download to your iPad. Get them now.

Did you know that you can send emails from your inbox directly into your Evernote account and automatically assign them to destination notebooks? If you haven’t discovered this feature yet, you’ll find that it’s a great way to save messages like electronic receipts, travel information, and anything else you might want to find later in a place that you can search and access from any computer or mobile device (your Evernote account!).

To do this:

1. Forward the email to your Evernote email address. Don’t know what your Evernote email address is? Go to the Account Info area of Evernote for Windows and Mac, Settings on Evernote Web and the Sync tab on Evernote for iPhone and iPad — your Evernote email will be listed there. On your Android device, go to Settings then Account Info to find your Evernote email.
2. To specify the destination notebook, append the subject line with the symbol “@” followed by the name of an existing notebook; to add a tag, include “#” followed by an existing tag.
3. If sending emails to a recently created notebook or tagging with a recently created tag, remember to sync your account first.
4. If adding both notebook and tag information, be sure to include the notebook name first.

Have you been using this feature? Share your tips in the comments.

Download the whole set »

Check out our other wallpapers for your computer and phone. Enjoy!

• Name: Megan Cotter
• Evernote Student Ambassador
• Profession: Student
• Location: Pittsburgh, PA
  
• Website: http://ottermc.blogspot.com
• Twitter: @OtterMC
  

Go to the Evernote for Higher Education discussion

We’ve talked to a lot of students who use Evernote for everything from taking notes to working on group projects and today we’re excited to announce our new Student Ambassador, Megan Cotter. Megan is a college student who’s here to share her tips for ways to use Evernote in a college or university setting. Megan is kicking things off by sharing a few of her top tips for using Evernote in college, just in time for finals.

10 Tips for Using Evernote to De-Stress College

College students have to keep track of a lot of things: every set of class notes, every internship/job application, every piece of information for every extracurricular activity, and on and on. All that stuff just leaves us stressed, trying to sort through each piece of paper to find the one thing that we need at that moment. As a lot of you may already know, Evernote is a great tool for organizing all of it and taking a little bit of the stress out of college.

2. Organize Your Research
No student can escape the endless amount of research. Evernote Clearly removes all of the distractions and lets you have exactly what you need from a website. Rather than printing out multiple pages, just clip however many lines you need. Cuts down on the paper, and makes that research project a whole lot easier.

3. Keep Up With Your Professors
Every school has that professor who puts an impossible amount of information on the board or on slides. Rather than trying to get it all down, just snap a picture. After class, use Skitch to add any extra information that you need and then put it right in with the rest of your notes.

4. Keep Everything Together, Not Just the Digital Stuff
Maybe you would rather take notes by hand. Or you have a professor with a “no technology policy.” That doesn’t mean that you can’t keep everything organized. Scan your handwritten notes and handouts into Evernote and they will be completely searchable. This way, when finals come around, you’ll be one step ahead.

5. Work Together Even If You’re Apart
One of the most stressful parts of group projects is finding a time everyone can get together. Rather than rearranging everyone’s schedules, use a Shared Notebook to keep everything up to date. You can also use a shared notebook with your study group. Make a study guide that the group can access and add to.

6. Remember the Best (Or Cheapest) Campus Pizza Place
Trying to remember the great pizza place you ate at last weekend with the huge student discount? Put it in Evernote Food. Then next time you’re having a craving, you won’t have to waste time calling for prices.

7. Know Your Stuff
Sometimes, accidents happen and you’ll end up needing medical attention. Instead of sitting in the doctor’s office, trying to remember what medication it was that made you break out in hives and when you last had a tetanus shot, keep a medical notebook with every random detail so you’ll never be caught unaware.

8. Take Control of Your Time
Does checking your favorite blogs for a new post become a major source of procrastination? Have them delivered right to your Evernote account with ifttt. Then you won’t have to waste time checking for a new one. There are a lot of other ways you can use ifttt for college, too.

9. What Do I Have at Home?
Don’t end up buying duplicates of things. Keep an inventory of everything you have. Snap a picture of each item and tag it with where it is: home or school. Check your inventory before you buy, that way you’ll have extra money for the pizza place from #6.

10. Let Everyone Know What You Want
Everyone has a wish list. Whether its a movie that just came out, a new computer, or a fancy coffee maker, use the Evernote Web Clipper to clip each item and purchase information into a notebook. Make it a public notebook and send the link around. Maybe it will appear in your next care package!

The Evernote Ambassador Program

Evernote Ambassadors are amazing individuals that are here to teach, share and help you get more out of Evernote. Learn more about Ambassadors and consider submitting your story.

Join the conversation happening in our Lifestyle Forum to connect with Ambassadors and other Evernote users.

Join the conversation

Download Ambassador Guides

Drap and drop them into a New Note or attach them to a note so you can access them from any computer or mobile device where you have Evernote installed!

Joshua Zerkel’s Productivity Tips (PDF)
Brandie Kajino’s Organization Tips (PDF)
Carley Knobloch’s Spring Cleaning Tips (PDF)

Evernote for Schools

Learn more about using Evernote in an education context by visiting our resource-packed microsite for schools. And, if you’re a U.S. college student, use your .edu email address to get Evernote Premium for the remainder of the school year, for free. More details here.

Get the Evernote Web Clipper for Chrome »

Smart Filing

If you’re like me, then you’re clipping content from across the web, but there are a handful of sites that you clip from more often than others. For example, I have some favorite food blogs that I turn to when I need cooking inspiration. Whenever I clip from these sites, I usually place them into my Recipes notebook. With the new Smart Filing feature, the Chrome web clipper does this organization automatically.

How Smart Filing works
When you click the Web Clipper, the extension looks in your account to see how you’ve organized similar clips in the past and then suggests notebooks, relevant tags or both. Of course, if you don’t agree with the suggestions, you can always change them. In my case, it’s been spot on almost every single time.

Clipping into Shared Notebooks

This update also adds a feature that many of you have requested: clipping into shared notebooks. Now, multiple people can work together to build notebooks full of research, ideas and inspirations.

How it works
First, you’ll need to have access to someone else’s notebook and have permission to edit the notes in that notebook. This is something that the notebook owner can do, if they’re a Premium subscriber. That’s all. Now, when you clip a page using the Chrome Web Clipper, you’ll see a Shared Notebook section in the notebook dropdown. Click on the notebook and clip away.

Great for groups
This new feature is great if you’re part of a Sponsored Group at your business or school. Since all members of a Sponsored Group are Premium, every member can grant anyone the right to add notes to their notebooks. Give it a shot.

More to come

In recent months, our Web Clippers have become more intelligent than ever. They know what to clip without you telling them and now they know how to file your clips, sometimes without you lifting a finger. They also have Simultaneous Search, so you can look in your Evernote account whenever you search the web. We have lots more in store, including bringing these new features and more to other browsers. Stay tuned.

Get the Evernote Web Clipper for Chrome »