Evernote, a popular online notetaking service, just became an app store for mobile devices and computers.
With "Evernote Trunk," unveiled Wednesday, the information organization service now supports structured add-ons by third-party partners, such as shopping lists, travel planning, cookbooks and magazines. One launch partner is MAKE magazine, which is offering a custom notebook where users can view and make notes on projects. Another is Voice2Note, an add-on that lets Evernote users to speak notes to themselves with full transcription, stored on Evernote's online server.
Evernote is a cloud-based repository of all the tidbits you encounter and save and make note of in your digital life, organizing them and making them available on your smartphone, tablet and any connected device with a browser.
Evernote played down the "store" aspect of the enhancement at a news conference Wednesday, calling the new app offering a showcase to extend the usefulness of the service. But it is effectively a new platform, and, in a break with the model of the big mobile app players, somewhat platform agnostic. Evernote's in-app features will be available both within native apps and through a web browser, whereas Apple's iOS apps and Google's Android apps can only be accessed natively on the mobile devices supporting them.
Evernote is also making it possible for partners to eventually sell features directly from within their apps. The split between Evernote and partners has not yet been determined, and more news will come in winter, Libin said. "The focus is not an app store," he said. "We want to be primarily a showcase for add-on features. If purchasing is the right move inside Evernote, we'll allow that."
But read between the lines. Ignoring the semantic nuances, a platform offering content and services potentially for a fee within is an app store. And this move makes sense: If companies smaller than Apple and Google wish to grow substantially, they have to consolidate with other small fries. This may be an interesting move for Evernote to slip in between the cracks in a significant way.
A full broadcast of Evernote's press conference is available on Ustream.
Image courtesy of Evernote
