Visualized: Evernote vs Springpad – is it really a competition?

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

For so many of you that follow my blog, becoming more productive is like caffeine for our brains.  The desire to be more productive motivates us.  It drives us.  Performing at work and life at peak productivity levels is our passion.  We long to find the right app on our computers, iPhones, Androids, iPads, and other tablets to help make that happen.  Our goal: know what we need to do and with whom, whenever and wherever we are in work and at home. And it’s come down to this: Springpad and Evernote.  You’ve all read my posts: but for you newbees, a brief recap: I fell in love with Evernote. I chastised Springpad. Then, like a regretful teenager who dumped his girlfriend and wants a second chance, I saw the shiny & new Springpad and repented.  I even went head-over-heels like a GTD Ninja in Springpad.  But then again, showing how weak and pathetic I am, Evernote comes out with their shiny & new.  Oh, how fickle can one productivity geek get? The audacity of it all!!  And so, on Twitter and on my posts, I get this question from so many of you: Which is it now – Springpad or Evernote?

The reality is that they are two different products with many similarities. They appeal to different target audiences with the same end game in mind.  Even Jeff Janer, co-founder of Springpad wrote that once on Quora.  He’s not really trying to compete against Evernote – but now, with Evernote’s latest kung-fu moves (Android update, New web interface, social media sharing, and desktop redux), there’s so many striking similarities. Both apps, I believe have their place with a specific segment in the note-taking-remember-everything space.  Evernote has been pushing educational, photographer & visual arts, musicians use cases in a big way.  Springpad has been really amping up their usefulness when shopping, cooking, sharing bookmarks, and of course, it’s overall usefulness in sharing notes with the world.

There’s definitely a cross-over market for both sets of people as well.  I’m the perfect example. Evernote is really for business and Springpad is for everything else in my life.  I use Evernote in business meetings, jotting down notes on client calls, storing customer literature pieces, presentations, managing expenses, and anything else that you can think of that requires stuffing digital files into this online repository for work.  I love the OCR & advanced search capabilities, nested notebooks & tags.  Springpad has its home for me for being able to “semantically detecting what you’re saving and structuring the data so that we can use the meta data to add relevant information and useful offers to help you save time and money.”, which include my recipes, shopping lists, todo’s, and bookmarks.  I love The Board for the ability to visualize and brainstorm projects.  Can you accomplish all of the above? Well, sort of.  That’s the reason I sincerely don’t believe one will dominate the next.

Well, I thought of no better way to illustrate the differences than with a … well, an illustration!  So, like any good 7-year old would, let’s draw!

Springpad vs. Evernote (c) 2011 Daniel E. Gold