When the two co-founders of Opera, Jon S. von Tetzchner and Geir Iversøy, did the first few lines of code which would eventually culiminate in the Opera Web browser, they only had their network and community to support and help them spread the word:

My Opera has later evolved into a full-grown service of its own, where thousands of bloggers and photographers contribute with content and through that helps other discover Opera. We asked a few community members, both new and old what they think of My Opera.

My Opera is first online community site that I joined. I have learned a lot, helped many Opera users, blogged about Opera, and got lot of incredible friends of different ages from all over the world.

From community member Tamil.

I like My Opera for its clean Web environment: No ads, no problem with mobile access, non-obtrusive design, huge free space to use... But the most useful "feature" I like is that there are many smart and intelligent people, and almost no trolls.

From community member FataL.

If you are stuck with things you'd like to share, the right place to do so is certainly here. Post pictures, write blog posts or join a debate, and why not find new friends - it's never too late. The system is brilliant and oh so nice, it lets you do all this from any device.

From community member rose-marie.

Also check out mariyamur's celebration post.

Here's to another million and for many new great services and features for everyone to enjoy!

This release is a big one. We've focused on performance, stability and adding new functionalities. This is to make My Opera an even better surfing experience on PC/Mac and mobile phones. As you may notice, the community section (this section has been given a new look and feel. We're very happy with the end result and feel this is a step in the right direction forward.

When you log in for the first time you'll see a different page than what you're used to. This is your new personal (and very private) home page on My Opera. Here you'll have easy access to news and cool activities happening in the community. We suggest you spend a bit of time to get used to it.

We would personally like to thank dantesoft, Tamil, thobi, rose-marie, sgunhouse, remcolanting, coxy, BAMAToNE, WillYum and Ramunas for beta testing and providing feedback along the way.

New and improved My Opera features

• 

  New fresh My Opera look

  We've tried to keep My Opera fresh, clean and easy on the eye and we really hope you like it. This look in particular has been worked alongside with new www.opera.com. We want to have a more unified browsing experience when visiting our new Web sites. You can also highlight and influence more what others see on My Opera by using the "spotlight" function when you're logged and surf around on your friends blogs.

• 

  Now available in 5 languages

  You can now have most parts of My Opera's user interface translated into Norwegian, Chinese, Italian and Spanish. You can change language using the drop down menu available at the bottom of this page. More languages such as Vietnamese, Japanese, etc. will follow soon.

• 

  1 GB of free storage space

  We've upped the ante! Another reason to celebrate. We wanted to give everyone more free storage space because, well... We want to see more of your stuff! More photos, more blog posts, more good stuff!

• 

  Friends activity feed on home page

  View a live and direct list based upon your friend's latest activities in the community. This list is generated based on mutual agreement between you and your friend (you both have to each other added as a friend). This is an exciting new feature and we will continue development in the future and add many extra functionalities to it. This is a first version we hope you'll appreciate.

• 

  Now you can help moderate too

  On all forums posts and album pictures you can now report it as offensive and/or violating our terms of service or guidelines. The report feature is your way to further help us make sure My Opera's spam free and that we don't have any nasty pictures. All reports will be investigated by a My Opera moderator.

• 

  New blog themes

  New My Opera users will now have a slick blog theme which fits perfectly with the official My Opera look. You can also try it out if you want from "My page", "Account" and "Design". There's also a new theme called “In the Shadows”. We recommend you check them out....

• 

  Mobile optimized site

  There has been a lot of mobile optimizations for this release! For example, we now use smaller pictures for faster loading while surfing the site on mobile. You can even see how My Opera would like on a mobile be clicking "view mobile site" at the bottom of this page.

• 

  Slideshow for photo albums

  A cool slideshow has been added for all photo albums. Simple click the "view slideshow" button in albums overview for a full screen slide show of your photos (note: not yet available for mobile phones).

• 

  Redesigned messages interface

  Friendlier interface for viewing messages. You can now also see your friends avatars. More improvements will follow later.

• 

  Massive code improvements

  We've rewritten a huge percentage of the entire code on My Opera! This is a huge step in order to deliver more, better and faster features for you in the future. It will greatly allow us to grow the community even more.

• 

  Easy access to Opera Link

  The new Opera Link drop down menu allows you to quicker and easier access your synchronised content. It also allows you to merge duplicate bookmarks — read more about Opera Link.

• 

  Member of the weeks

  Want to know who member of the week was? Well... Now you can! Check out the new motw archive.

• 

  HTML tweaks

  While adding new features and improving old ones, we had to tweak the HTML code a bit. Please check your CSS if you have any. Small changes have been made to "friends", "latest visitors" and "latest comments". Some more changes has also been made to the photo albums section and the top menu is now placed inside the #wrap3 div (on most designs). Feel free to ask any questions about this.

• 

  Bug fixes

  A lot of bug fixes are included in this release. How many? We lost count... It's that many! Thanks to all who reported bugs in the forums and participated in the private beta testing.

• 

  And...!

  A whole lot more stuff you'll discover while surfing the site! For example; check out the editor’s picks photo albums...

This week we've used the hammer of justice quite frequently on My Opera. More than 100 accounts has been banned and a large number of offensive content has been removed. The accounts were primarily banned due to violations of our terms of service. There has been extensive abuse of our internal messaging system (PM) and we've removed a lot of sexual content. In addition, we've locked and closed many photo albums and sent warnings to users who have been posting offensive content.

We will continue to remove this kind of content and make My Opera a nice place for you to stay in.

We are working hard to keep My Opera clean, so for the next release of My Opera there will be a report feature you can use to notify us on offensive content. This will greatly ease moderation on My Opera.

Should you at any point find content that is not suitable for the My Opera Community you should always report this to the moderators so that we are able to remove it as soon as possible! Either use the contact forum or send a private message to a moderator. All reports will be investigated!

Here are some statistics on content we've removed and closed this week:

*VTS = Violating Terms of Service

The My Opera Terms of Service can be found at the following URL when you are logged in: my.opera.com/signup