EDITOR’S NOTE: In the interest of full disclosure, I, Joey Sweeney, must admit a fact I’ve been trying to shield for years: It was I who came up with the name of one of the stupidest Philly-born web ventures of all time — Philadelphia Weekly‘s late-90s web startup, Brainsoap.com. Memories of that time (circa 1999) are foggy to say the least, but I recall being given a sheet of paper and a pen, sent to my desk, and told to come up with “20 great website names.” I sat there for a moment, realized that I’d like to go take a walk and get lunch as soon as I could, and promptly came up with, uhm, 20 great website names. (What I would not give for a look at the other 19 today.) Anyway, imagine my surprise when a few days later, it was proclaimed that BRAINSOAP.COM would be the new PW web product. In the months that came, I would be regularly horrified at what transpired on the Brainsoap project, to the point that by the end of the year, I’d decided to exit the office entirely and work from home on a permanent basis. (I left the paper in 2003.) That’s my part of the story, but after the jump, ex-Brainsoap suit Chris O’Brien tells the rest of it, suit-on-hipster rage and all.

AS TOLD BY CHRIS O’BRIEN: How the fuck I ever decided to take that job is news to me and my therapist still but it was fun for a little while. With ‘internet marketing’ chops, a Brooklyn pedigree, friends at the Times, the ability to play some nasty guitar and a natural sales ability , I embarked upon the USS Brainsoap as Gilligan to Cap’n Jim Macdonald who would then find his calling in ‘regional right wing rag development’ and Mr. Howell (Anthony Clifton) who remains a gentleman and a really nice guy. The professor (Tim Whitaker) and Marianne (Liz Spikol) tried their best to right the ship via content development and editorial engine repair but this was a short and doomed voyage. Hipsters and Michael Stipe wannabe’s (fey, wan and aloof – too important to discuss music with mere mortals) duked it out with bloated, blathering bloggers who looked over their Oliver Peoples reading glasses in disdain at me – who the fuck is this guy? I wonder where they are now? Testy marketing squabbles with Marianne (over-caffeinated and under-informed) clueless and backstabbing, lest I forget the “mean man” in the print division who scared my little boy who was then age 2 – he’s probably married in California now with kids of his own (in keeping with current fashion trends).

The deal was, and it seemed very cool and progressive at the time, to sell ads on short movies we would produce in-house (interviews with cool authors, artists, musicians, politicos, etc. – Warren Zevon was one example I was given) and to bolster the then sagging print division (this was pre-real estate boom) with another ads people could buy. This was pre youtube.com more like braintube or tubesoap. I was comfortably numb to the double entendre of the name (crack, “E”, “T”, why?).

It was really not a bad idea but entrenched interests and big egos (freelancers, hipsters, quite serious journalists, very stoned but talented techies, marketing gu-rus) clashed and it died a quick death (I do get a chuckle though the URL still points to PW) which was hastened by the idiotic marketing campaign (a middle finger) and oddly melancholy launch party. Brainsoap was a decent idea, some nice people tried to make it go fast, and it was somewhat progressive in its realization that video could sell on these internets.

Who could forget the charming misspelling of ‘milleniam’ on the home page – and/ or the fact that the site was plagued by technical issues and an insistence that realplayer (not okay) was the real deal (not).
Ultimately, PW dropped the soap.

I feel much cleaner now. Thank You.

Chris O’Brien can be found these days at CD-Inc.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 2:43 pm.