Soap Opera 2.0
What inspired us to make our app SOAP and why we built it.
Back to the 90s
You’re watching television during the afternoon, jumping between TV channels and discovering several TV shows telling people stories.
Those were soap operas.
According to Wikipedia :
A soap opera is a serial drama, on television or radio, that features related storylines about the lives of multiple characters.
Depending on your generation, you may have watched Dallas, The Bold and the Beautiful, Beverly hills 90210, and so many more...
They were all stories unfolding of a group of people, that you’d follow on a daily basis. Some were fun, other were real dramas. People were sometimes together, sometimes on their own. Some characters disappeared, others emerged, some others are still there.
But what would those stories look like in the social media era we are living in now ? What if your life was already a soap opera?
Welcome to SOAP
Today, we all share content in order to validate our online existence. It could be pictures, tweets, selfies, memes, GIFs, and so many other cool products of the last decade.
With all that in mind, we built SOAP, an app for anyone to create its own soap opera. And you’ll see that the metaphor could be found in every single aspect of our project.
Unfolding story
A soap opera is an unfolding story that’s being written as the show evolves.
On SOAP, all the clips you add are instantly stitched and broadcasted so that people follow your story in real-time. But, they won’t have to start from the beginning every time; they’ll start exactly where they left off, as if they were following their favourite TV show.
Ensemble cast
In a soap opera, each character plays a key role in the overall story .
On SOAP, you can build your own cast and invite your friend to collaborate so that you can create one single show together. All the clips you share will be combined in the order thet were captured creating a story anyone could follow. So let’s say that you’re named Rachel and your friends are Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, and Ross, you can easily find a name for your soap!
Open-ended
A soap opera could span multiple generation.
On SOAP, you can create stories that tell your day, your journey but also your entire life. You can start a soap about a newborn and keep posting until he’ll get an iPhone 17 + and continue his story! Your soap could be your legacy.
Wait, there’s more!
Beyond the characteristics mentioned above, we discovered extras in the metaphor.
Business Model included
Initially, soaps were sponsored by soap manufacturers in order to keep housewives home to show them soap ads between each show. It’s exactly what YouTube is doing today by inserting ads into the content they previously sponsored. Even though monetization is not our number one priority, mid-roll advertising will be a serious option.
In the meanwhile, soap manufacturers gave us a few branding ideas.
Suggestive brand name
Listening to Paul Graham’s famous Do things that don’t scale, we’ve been on the field to test our pitch and get young people’s reactions on our metaphoric concept. Asking : would you make your life a soap ? always brought us smiles and curiosity. Among answers finding that cheesy, cool, great or not for themselves, someone gave me this awkward answer :
my life is already a soap, my mom had sex with my boyfriend.
SOAP is now available on the AppStore so if you’re in the mood for creating your own soap opera, feel free to try the app on www.soapapp.co and send us your feedback.
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Thanks to Jerry and Laurane for their english help.
