My OperaOpera Mobile Profiles
By Eddie LopezEddie_Lopez. Thursday, February 1, 2007 2:50:47 PM
Here's a rewrite of my post from the Opera Mini blog...
When it comes to the Opera Mini browser, it's very important to be able to have a profile (user settings, bookmarks, feeds, etc) that is independent of Mini.
Several reasons why:
Use the Community! Since the compressed page is coming from Opera anyway...*AND* you have such a great community, you could have the users:
1) Download mini
2) on the page with the EULA include some text asking: "if you'd like to backup/sync your mini data..." along with the standard "login/create account" prompt that would allow the user to create a my.opera.com/ profile (or login for all of us that have one already)
3) That will establish a link up so that any bookmarks created on the handset will also be copied to the users profile.
4) The user can manage the bookmarks (at least), and some mini settings (like: **-fullscreen on startup!) from this page. It's defaulted to private viewing, but able to be viewed public. So Opera profiles created via Mini would have an "About" page and a hidden "Mini" page that could be made viewable.
...Opera gets community members, users get to keep data that gets lost everytime we update Mini, we get an easier UI to manage, we can share our mobile bookmarks with the community... sounds cool to me! Give the millions of Mini users more than just that "my Opera" bookmark that many of them probably wouldn't know what to do with- but now they have an account and can easily get right to community involvement.
It's only natural to then extend this capability to the desktop as well. I picture a "local" and an "online" bookmark setting. The online could be flagged as public or private as noted in the Mini example, but will always be available to the user.
Then any desktop upgrades, beta testing multiple computers will all be synced together, including Mini.
I bookmark slashdot.org one time and it's available on any version of Opera I install via my Opera Community Profile (which I may choose to share with the rest of the community).
When it comes to the Opera Mini browser, it's very important to be able to have a profile (user settings, bookmarks, feeds, etc) that is independent of Mini.
Several reasons why:
- If we could save and edit bookmarks on our desktop *in addition to* our phone, it would create a seemless experience. Our bookmarks are the same if we save them on our phone or our desktop, or through a web app.
- When updating Mini, you lose it all. You can't back up your bookmarks and "remember me" information. You start over at every upgrade.
- Opera CTO and CEO have hinted at this, most recently in this Capitol Markets Day presentation
- There's millions (ten!) of Mini users that could potentially be getting involved in the community. If they have an "easy in" and a reason to create a profile, it should be easier to get more community involvment.
Use the Community! Since the compressed page is coming from Opera anyway...*AND* you have such a great community, you could have the users:
1) Download mini
2) on the page with the EULA include some text asking: "if you'd like to backup/sync your mini data..." along with the standard "login/create account" prompt that would allow the user to create a my.opera.com/ profile (or login for all of us that have one already)
3) That will establish a link up so that any bookmarks created on the handset will also be copied to the users profile.
4) The user can manage the bookmarks (at least), and some mini settings (like: **-fullscreen on startup!) from this page. It's defaulted to private viewing, but able to be viewed public. So Opera profiles created via Mini would have an "About" page and a hidden "Mini" page that could be made viewable.
...Opera gets community members, users get to keep data that gets lost everytime we update Mini, we get an easier UI to manage, we can share our mobile bookmarks with the community... sounds cool to me! Give the millions of Mini users more than just that "my Opera" bookmark that many of them probably wouldn't know what to do with- but now they have an account and can easily get right to community involvement.
It's only natural to then extend this capability to the desktop as well. I picture a "local" and an "online" bookmark setting. The online could be flagged as public or private as noted in the Mini example, but will always be available to the user.
Then any desktop upgrades, beta testing multiple computers will all be synced together, including Mini.
I bookmark slashdot.org one time and it's available on any version of Opera I install via my Opera Community Profile (which I may choose to share with the rest of the community).
