Cartoon Logic: A Day in the Life

Here’s a story for you entrepreneurs. My very first company was called Cartoon Logic. It was a sole-proprietorship that I established in July of 1997, after my second year of college. I started the company to prove that my Computer Science education was applicable in the real world.

I had a couple partners. Each of us developed our own applications (we collaborated on a few projects) and sold them as shareware. We made some decent flow for a college and two high school kids. We invested our profits in the stock market and split the money three ways when we sold the stock.

I can’t remember exactly how I came up with this idea, but I do remember that I wanted to write in a journal. Of course, being a programmer (a learning one at that), you didn’t go buy software. You wrote it yourself. So that’s what I did.

I called it “A Day In the Life” after the famed Beatles song. And in 1998, I published it for the world to use. You’re thinking, “Big deal, there were other journal applications in 1998.”

Ah, yes there were a few, but at the time I was developing it, none of them were quite as Internet-savvy as my good ole ADITL. The feature set read like this:

• Warm and friendly user interface
• Multi-User diary
• Password protected
• Encrypted entries
• Attach images and sounds to entries
• Personalize journal fonts and colors
• Print single or multiple entries
• Import text
• Export entries as text
• Export entries as HTML
• Send entry as e-mail
• Download quotes from cartoonlogic.com
• Calendar with highlighted days
• Scratch pad on calendar
• Online Help
• Integrates with MS Word Spell Check

Looks pretty standard, right? Well, let’s look again at some key features.

• Attach images and sounds to entries
• Export entries as HTML
• Download quotes from cartoonlogic.com

Interesting. It’s funny because I clearly remember the day I wrote the “Export entries as HTML” feature. I kind of chuckled as I finished it up because I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to post their journal entries for the world to see. But to me, I could add another feature bullet, so I was all over it. Unfortunately, I didn’t recognize that I had written a blogging application. In 1998. So the software would export your entries by selecting a date range and an output folder. It would neatly create the HTML file and include any images or sounds in the same folder. All you needed to do was upload to your website.

Another “bullet” feature was “Attach images and sounds to entries.” Attach images seemed like a usable feature, but sounds? What? Why would anyone want to record sounds into a journal? I couldn’t figure out why either, but damnit, I wanted another bullet! So viola… a journal that posts entries for the web and includes sounds. I created a blogging/podcasting application. In 1998.

The “Download quotes from cartoonlogic.com” was a feature that made use of an Internet connection. If you were struggling for a topic, you could click a button and it would grab a random quote from the website. We would update the quote file and keep it filled with interesting quips.

It was a runaway smash right? I mean blogging and podcasting are everywhere! Not in 1998. I think I sold about 100 units at $20 a pop. It was a win for me. It was another application I could put on cartoonlogic.com. And I got a 4 stars Editor’s Pick from ZDNet! Sure, it wasn’t a “4-Net” (a popular 5-star app one of the partners and I collaborated on), but I learned some things in the process and moved on to other applications. Here’s the review from ZDNet…

Archive your personal thoughts with A Day in the Life. This multimedia diary program (which supports multiple users) gives you a nice place to record life’s happenings through words, images, and even sounds. You can record .wavs and/or attach images in .jpg, .bmp, .ico, emf, and .wmf formats to each day’s entry. As with any good journal app, you can lock your diary with a password to maintain confidentiality. Or share your memories by using the program to create dynamic Web pages, email your entries to others, or print. You can even grab a daily quote over the Internet. A Day in the Life features a great-looking interface, complete with pleasant sound effects (which can be shut off). If you’re looking for a nice way to track your memories, A Day in the Life should be considered. About all that’s missing is a built-in spelling checker. You can launch this unregistered version up to 30 times. Reviewed on Jul 17 1998.

Anyway, the moral of the story is when you look back at your ideas, don’t cry when you realize you were in the pack - if not ahead of the pack - and failed miserably to bring your idea to a mass audience. Yeah, that’s the moral. Or is it pimp the “bullet” features that sound crazy? Hell, I don’t know what the moral is, but it’s fun to look back and think what could’ve been.