Note-taking applications are typical tool applications. The advantage of this type of application is that it can obtain a very good reputation at the user level, and can still gain a large number of users without the need for large-scale promotion.
Only 14 months after Youdao Cloud Note was launched, the number of users exceeded 5 million, and the number of daily active users reached 300,000. In November 2018, Youdao Cloud Notes announced that the total number of notes created by the 80 million users on the platform exceeded 5 billion.
Evernote has not announced its specific number of users, but at the 7th anniversary press conference, Evernote CEO Tang Yi mentioned the "small goal" in the future: "to become the first screen application for 300 million people in China". Tang Yi revealed phone number list that since the reorganization of Evernote in June last year, the number of Evernote’s personnel has increased three or four times, and at the same time, the number of revenue and active users has at least doubled. In the introduction of the Evernote International App, it is mentioned that it is "a note-taking app loved by over 150 million people".
However, the shortcomings of tool-type applications are also obvious - commercialization difficulties. Unlike some applications that naturally have flexible commercialization paths, such as social networking, e-commerce, video, music, etc., the monetization model of tool-based applications is very scarce, even the most easily realized advertising monetization model in the Internet industry, in the tool-based application here There will also be disadvantages. There will be conflicts between user experience and advertising. Once there are too many advertisements, the user experience will drop sharply. If you pay too much attention to the user experience, the advertising revenue will not come up.