Choose Opera

Everyone in the technology industry can understand the roles and responsibilities of Chief Executive Officers or Chief Financial Officers. David Storey is Opera’s Chief Web Opener. It may not be a title people identify with immediately, but Storey’s position is of vital interest to everyone who is interested in how the Web works.

His job description is fairly simple: make Web sites work in all browsers, and help developers learn and adopt Web standards. But while the task may sound simple, there’s a reason some at Opera call him the mission-impossible man.

Everyone in the technology industry can understand the roles and responsibilities of Chief Executive Officers or Chief Financial Officers. David Storey is Opera’s Chief Web Opener. It may not be a title people identify with immediately, but Storey’s position is of vital interest to everyone who is interested in how the Web works.

His job description is fairly simple: make Web sites work in all browsers, and help developers learn and adopt Web standards. But while the task may sound simple, there’s a reason some at Opera call him the mission-impossible man.

The bare truth is that many Web sites do not bother to, are not able to, or just do not want to follow open standards. Storey’s job is to talk to every single one of them and help change their perceptions about Web standards. But changing these perceptions is a complex task. “David was the first person to have a full-time job in this position,” says Tor Odland, Director of Corporate Communications. “It is a position that needs more than what one man can do alone. “

“We have two more people in similar positions, one in Japan, one in India and we hope soon to recruit in Russia, China and the USA,” explains Storey.

Calling them Web standards makes them sound mandatory, but they are not. After Microsoft effectively killed off competition from Netscape, developers found it easier to implement functions that did not comply with standards, but that did work with Microsoft. This was at a time when Microsoft could lay claim to more than a 90 percent share in the browser market, and many Web sites chose to ignore the other 10 percent.

A powerful expansion of alternative browsers like Opera, Mozilla Corporation’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari has started to change the landscape. Sites that exclude users of these browsers lose a large number of visitors. As the world increasingly uses the Web on mobile devices, these sites again find themselves at a disadvantage. The good news is that the world has improved in the last year – in some places.

Asia at a disadvantage

“The Web sites developed in the USA, Great Britain and Germany are very good, and, in general, European sites are pretty good. Norway is especially good because that is where Opera comes from and Web programmers know us well,” says Storey.

“What is surprising,” says Storey, “ is that the most problematic areas where many developers do not use Web standards are South Korea, China and several other Asian countries. These are countries where Microsoft has maintained a large market share, and much of the Web standard documentation is written in English. There are no incentives to code to Web standards, but that is beginning to change with the emergence of the mobile Web and the expansion of alternative browsers in those regions,” explains Storey.

A social developer

How does one tackle the daunting task of fixing the Web? The first step is to have the right technical knowledge. Before he began at Opera in October of 2005, Storey worked with CERN in Switzerland and freelanced, making his own Web applications. He wrote about distributed systems in his Master’s thesis.

Even though his job requires a deep understanding of the Web, the second step – communication – is a social art.

“I must understand what the processes are, and I travel around the world to learn Web development. I take part in around 15-20 conferences each year, mostly in the USA,” says Storey. “The most important part of these conferences is not to make presentations or listen to presentations, but to meet people.”

But the job goes beyond just shaking hands and exchanging polite conversation. “The main challenge is to get in contact with the right people. The help desk usually does not provide help,” says Storey. “Web development, technology people and communications managers are the key contacts. In many large companies, Opera has had good experiences talking to business developers who report to the top people.”

“At YouTube, I have direct contact with the founder, Steve Chen. I send him emails and he answers directly,” says Storey. “That was before they were big, but they have been as helpful after they were bought by Google. He appreciated the feedback to help make their site work better in Opera and other browsers. He only wished that the IE team was as helpful.”

Things do not often work out that well, however. “We drove to Mountain View in Silicon Valley to meet the Hotmail Team,” says Storey. “They were not really interested in our concerns, but people higher up in Microsoft have signaled a change towards Web standards, so things are expected to improve soon.”

It is not only the obscure Web pages that can cause compatibility problems. Google is probably the world’s most Internet-oriented company. Everything is online, but they are not always cooperative. “Gmail was the largest Web site that did not support us,” says Storey. “The same thing happened with Google’s net-based office solutions. Google Docs was problematic for a while and they initially said they did not want to change anything, but it was eventually fixed. As long as we find the right contact person everything usually goes smoothly.”

INHERITED errors

“First and foremost Internet Explorer 6 is a large problem, but Firefox also has some portions of the program that do not follow open standards. The problems have arisen due to the heritage Firefox inherited from the time when Netscape dominated before IE took over. Netscape could write functions however they pleased.”

“Sometimes we build functions to support oddities within Internet Explorer. This depends on how popular the functions are. We analyze the situation to find out how difficult it will be to support these. If other browsers also support the functions, there is a greater chance that we also will,” says Storey.

There are two ways in which Opera handles sites that do not work well. They can identify themselves as another browser, and, if it does not function, they use browser.js, which is a JavaScript file that corrects the site’s source code.

Browser.js is a file that fixes errors for specific domains. It is automatically updated once a week for those who have installed the Opera browser. Until Storey finds his right contact, browser.js ensures that the pages work perfectly for people who use Opera.

The mobile Internet

“Opera may not be dominating on the desktop, but on mobile phones we are the leader. Because the circumstances are so different, many Web sites are not as prepared as they could be to seize the mobile opportunity. When sites detect that the user comes from a mobile, they may get an inferior mobile version of the site. Opera, of course, displays the whole Web site,” says Storey “Opera’s mobile browser is made to read normal Web sites; this is not usual on other, more primitive browsers. “ As of now, mobile browsing has not completely taken off, but many indicators point that the market is rapidly changing. Opera and David Storey work to explain to developers how Web sites can capture more of the mobile Web in order to discover new customers and earn more revenue.

Communication has always been key to spreading both ideas and ideals. This is even more important on the Web because it evolves constantly and the standards evolve with it. People like David Storey, operating out on the front lines, champion these Web standards personally to millions of developers worldwide.

The next time a site works flawlessly no matter what device you use, you just might have David Storey, the mission impossible man, the man with the odd title, to thank. Even if you will never know exactly what he does.

Article adapted from interview in Digi.no, an Oslo-based online publication, but also published in "Opera magazine".