Opera Mobile

It was the day before April 1. A Friday, with all the pre-weekend buzz that comes with it. And spring was in the air, which only fueled my excitement. I had talked my colleagues and best friend into something very weird, and my office looked like a low-budget adult movie set.

It was time for our April 1 joke.

Last year's joke about Opera Soundwave was a great success. This year we decided to have fun with existing stock photography and online photo catalogues that companies hire photos from when they create online or print material, such as brochures. In the technology sector, most brochures and company presentations show all these pictures of beautiful people holding phones or working on their laptops in a glossy, perfect world where white teeth and good looks are mandatory traits. So we decided to use Opera employees (and my best friend Torstein) to show the world how REAL people ACTUALLY use technology in their everyday lives.

Hence the rather dodgy set-up in my office.

Most people have a well-developed sense of what is acceptable and appropriate in official contexts. I have demonstrated, on numerous occasions, a blatant lack of this trait (I usually get away with it, though, like when publically putting our CEO on the spot, forcing him to try to swim from Norway to the USA). Two of my ads were thus censored by Opera's top management. They thought the ads were very funny, but too risqué to use in an official context - April Fool's joke or not.

But they're too good not to be shared, so through my unofficial Opera Mobile blog, I hereby give you the two ads that were deemed "too much".

Rather than putting them here in your face, here are the links:

- Opera Mini censored ad #1
- Opera Mini censored ad #2

Have a great weekend!

Today we announced that Opera Mini has attracted 2 million users. That's great, and it is only the beginning. However, what is really intriguing about the statistics is how much they actually use the browser. If all 2 million surfed every day, they would browse two pages per person per day. But as with any service, far from everybody is using it every day. The most avid users browse up to 30 pages per day, a large chunk average around 10 and, of course, some only browse now and then or not at all.

We've been saying how operators can boost their Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) by enabling their entire customer base to browse the Web, and these numbers really back that up. Every day, between 38 and 76 Gigabytes of traffic run through our servers.

It's good for all: End-users get to surf the real Web on their phones, faster and cheaper because of Mini's compression; Operators get all this data traffic from users that would normally not be surfing if it hadn't been for Mini; Content providers reach the mass market with their existing sites and services.

T-Mobile has understood this, and signed with us to pre-install Opera Mini on their high-volume feature phones in their Web'n'Walk offering. Debitel understood this and signed to use Opera's entire range of mobile solutions on selected handsets. And a wide range of content sites and Web services have understood this and are signing up as Opera Mini distributors.

It's only been two months since the global launch of Opera Mini, and we've had some really good wins already. Stay tuned!

Russel Beattie just wrote:

I'll admit I've gone back and forth on my opinions of the new .mobi TLD. But I've finally made the firm decision that it's definitely a step forward for the mobile web.

I agree that this is a step forward for the mobile Web because it focuses on the very concept of browsing the Internet from mobile devices. That said, I fear it may complicate things: There is one Web, and that one Web should be accessible regardless of the device you are using. That's why making mobile stylesheets makes a lot of sense for Web developers. People shouldn't have to remember a different URL just because they are on a different device than their PC. With Opera Mobile and Opera Mini, we use Small-Screen Rendering to display desktop-sized Web pages on small screens. Sites that use mobile stylesheets are left untouched. The URL is the same.

Opera is one of the sponsors of the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Mobile Web Initiative (MWI). If you're not familiar with the group's work, it's worth taking a look at their Activity Statement, the last part of which reads as follows:

... Mobile Web access today still suffers from interoperability and usability problems. W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative (W3C MWI) proposes to address these issues through a concerted effort of key players in the mobile production chain, including authoring tool vendors, content providers, handset manufacturers, browser vendors and mobile operators.

Or, as I say every night before going to bed:

I believe in Tim Berners-Lee, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of the Internet,
and in the World Wide Web, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived at CERN,
born of the Open Standards,
suffered under proprietary tyranny,
was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended into Redmond.

The third day He arose again from the dead.

He ascended into the W3C
and sits at the right hand of Tim the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the advocates of two different Internets.

I believe in one Internet, the holy World Wide Web,
the same for all devices
the redundancy of .mobi
the resurrection of the standards
and one unified Web everlasting.

Amen.

The Opera shares reached an all-time high today. The reason seems to be our two latest announcements of two very important contracts - one with T-Mobile and one with Debitel, a leading European telecoms service provider, both showing the compelling importance and value of offering a mobile Web browser on handsets.

T-Mobile: Will pre-install Opera Mini on three high-volume feature phones, with more to come, thus expanding their Web'n'Walk offering to their entire customer base. [stock announcement]

debitel: Will utilize Opera's entire portfolio of mobile solutions (Opera Mini, Opera Mobile and Opera Platform) across their entire device portfolio over the next two years. [stock announcement]

This really shows what we have been saying for a long time - that mobile Internet is really here, and when two such major operators choose Opera for their devices it is a testament to the quality of our products and ability to deliver.

This is a great day here at Opera. This morning we released Opera Mini - free of charge - to the entire world. Now most people can surf the full Web on the phone they have today. That's pretty neat, if you ask me.

Here are some resources:

The official Opera Mini Web site
Press release
Images for editorial use

Brian and Thomas put it well in the my.opera.com announcement...