Clearly, Evernote Helps with Drowning the Noise

I'm a huge Evernote fan. The desktop, mobile and tablet apps are used everyday -- personally and professionally. It's my number one GTD app -- get things done.

I also am in love with their Clearly browser extension for Chrome. Instead of telling you what it does, I'll show you:

Above is a picture of a New York Times article about the scrappy beginnings of the New England Patriots franchise. You'll see all my call-outs, including the advertising, Facebook stuff, navigation distractions, etc.

Now, check out this photo reading the same article with the Evernote Clearly extension for Chrome:

You'll notice that the interface is clean. It strips away all the noise, which is fantastic as you start to get into an article. Let me show you what I mean:

The areas in the red boxes distract me. They are the Times' way to drive you to ad copy or other sections of their site, share content, etc…when all I want to do is read the piece.

Now, here's what that same section looks like in Clearly:

Clean, right? No distractions. Just the content. It's damn near perfect.

Great thing about Clearly that it gives you options to change the look of the interface, print and even change the size of the fonts:

Clip to your Evernote account:

I can see this tool being more and more useful as sites try and add on richer experiences, not realizing that it's the content that counts, not the bells and whistles.