Post-it Teams Up with Evernote to Take Sticky Notes Digital
In an age when everything is digital, Post-it notes are getting with the times.
3M, the company behind the popular sticky notes, announced a partnership with personal organization app Evernote, which many people use for note-taking and document storage. The two joined forces to create software that will recognize photos of Post-its taken with a smartphone and let users read, store, and sort notes.
The software also will recognize the signature neon colors of the Post-it notes and allow users to categorize them accordingly. So, for example, you could use all pink for shopping lists, green for scheduling, and yellow for those important “Don’t forget!” messages.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the partnership aims to be the solution for people who still prefer to jot things down on paper but would like a more efficient way of organizing and accessing their notes—and to maybe eliminate the need for the little tags stuck to their computers, refrigerators, and steering wheels.
“Paper really is still the easiest way to write a thought down and remember it,” said Jesse Singh, vice president of 3M’s stationery and office supplies division. “This partnership seemed an obvious choice for us for the brand.”
3M plans to sell packs of Post-it notes featuring Evernote’s elephant head logo and, for a short time, will offer a free upgrade to a premium Evernote subscription for thirty days, which is worth five dollars.
Singh said he hopes 3M will sell more Post-its and demonstrate appeal to a broader demographic. Evernote CEO Phil Libin said he hopes to see a jump in downloads of the app. Both companies will share revenue from app downloads and Post-it sales as part of the partnership.
This isn’t Evernote’s first venture into the ink-and-paper world. Last year it teamed up with Moleskine, manufacturer of the leather-bound notebooks favored by writers and sketchers, to create books with pages designed to be easily photographed so they can be uploaded to the app.
“Paperless as a concept is stupid,” Evernote’s Libin said. “The goal is to get rid of stupid uses of paper.”
