Rosalind

Opera Unite is off to a great start, already offering the ability to share files, host a website, stream music and videos, and do many other formerly difficult things from an ordinary home computer. What other features will it have in the future? There are countless possibilities, but here are the top ten things I'd like to see:

#10. Individual Passwords

Currently security is limited to one password per service, which must be given to all the people who will have access to it. To remove one single person's access to any given service, the new password must be re-sent to everyone else.

This is fine if removing access isn't going to be an issue, but otherwise it would be nice to have the option to associate different passwords with different email addresses.

#9. Torrent Tracker

File Sharing is great for those with a lot of upload bandwidth to spare, but for those of us on slower connections, sharing large files with many people can become a problem. Bittorrent is perfect for this situation, which is why I'd like the ability to run a torrent tracker.

#8. Forum

Like running a web server in general, running a forum from a home computer is possible, but extremely difficult for anyone without much technical knowledge. It would be cool to be able to do it without having to learn anything about PHP.

#7. Voice Chat

Unite already has text chat ability in the form of the Lounge, which makes voice chat an obvious next step. Chat with anyone with a browser and a microphone!

#6. Bookmark Sharing

This is a fairly simple one: a service that displays whatever Opera bookmarks are currently saved on the computer, arranged the same way they are in the bookmark list.

This could be used to share bookmarks with friends or just to have them available from any computer no matter the browser. It would be even better if bookmarks could be selected for sharing by folder the way files are in File Sharing.

#5. Blog

Unite can already be used to make a basic website, so why not a blog? It would make things much easier for anyone who needs to update their website regularly, and would obviously be great for people who just plain want to run blogs from their own computers.

#4. More Informative Progress Bar in File Uploader

This was originally further down on the list, as it's such a small thing that it didn't strike me as that important at first. The more I use File Uploader, however, the more the vague upload progress bar bugs me.

Is the file really uploading? How fast is it going? How far along is it? How many files out of the group have actually finished? Upload more than one file and it will start to drive you nuts. It could be fixed with just a little more information on the screen while uploading, though.

#3. Drawing Board

The Fridge allows people to leave little notes on your computer. The drawing board would allow them leave pictures. It wouldn't need to be Photoshop-level; just a little paint program to draw a picture, for those messages that simply need to have more than text.

#2. Document Viewer

Ebooks and other documents can already be shared via File Sharing, but it would be even more convenient to be able to view them in the browser itself, without the hassle of opening an outside program. The document viewer could also allow comments to be made on each document, either to give feedback or just allow for a shared reading experience.

#1. Wiki

There are plenty of things I'd love see in Opera Unite, but this is easily #1. Wikis are great because they allow large numbers of people to share information with each other without difficulty. Unfortunately, while they're easy to use, they're far less easy to set up. There are plenty of sites out there that will allow people to set wikis up for free, but generally the cost ends up being paid in ads on the page or severe space limitations. Being able to simply install a wiki service in Opera Unite and immediately have an ad-free, functional wiki for people to post to would be awesome.

Because really, isn't sharing the things that are important to you what Opera Unite is all about?

6 comments

Doorknobs: the plight of the successful innovation

Tuesday, August 25, 2009 3:36:24 AM

opera, contest

The strange thing about innovation is that no matter how good an innovation is, it will be forgotten over time. Bad and so-so innovations are forgotten because the fad passes, but good innovations are forgotten because they simply become commonplace. And the worst thing about it is that the better the innovation, the faster this happens!

The more practical an innovation is, the faster it's adopted and copied by others. The easier it is to use, the less people have to think about the fact that they're using it. The more versatile it is, the more it works its way into everyday life, and the less it seems like an innovation. How could something so basic, so everyday have been an innovation? Didn't we always have it? How could anyone have gotten by without it?

Huge innovations usually get to be remembered in some way. Everyone knows that Gutenberg invented the printing press and Edison the light bulb. But how many know who came up with the doorknob? It was only invented in 1878. Obviously people had doors in their houses before then, but from the perspective of someone who's always known doorknobs, the idea of not having them is hard to imagine. Wasn't it difficult to keep the door closed, but still open it freely when needed?

Of course it was. That's why someone invented the doorknob.

Technology moves far more quickly now, and new innovations appear all the time, many adopted almost instantly. The next generation of internet users will probably feel the same way about these innovations as we do about doorknobs.

“Browsing before tabs? What happened when you wanted to have more than one page open at the same time?”

“No session manager? You mean you had to open up all the tabs you wanted one at a time, every time?”

“No page zoom? So you were just... stuck... with the images the way they were?”

“No pop-up blocking? Any site you visited could open up whatever it wanted all over the screen?!”

Even those of us who know what it was like to be without them tend not to think about the fact that we're using them. They're so natural to have, so integrated into our routines that there's not generally any reason to.

So take a moment to thank Osbourn Dorsey for the doorknob and Opera for tabbed browsing, the session manager, page zooming, pop-up blocking, mouse gestures, the speed dial, and whatever other innovations they'll come up with in the future, because I'm sure we'll take those as much for granted as we do these.

8 comments