Free Browser Drives Social Networking From Mobile Phones

November 29, 2006; 09:11 AM
oday, Opera Software introduces Opera Mini 3.0, the latest version of the award-winning mobile browser already used by eight million people worldwide. -- The upgrade available today introduces new features that enhance mobile social networking abilities on all community sites: photo sharing, RSS feed reader and secure connections. -- Opera Mini is not tied to any single service, so it offers a personal Web experience that can be used to easily browse and upload pictures to all online community sites, including MySpace, Blogger, Flickr, Facebook and My Opera, as well as securely using popular webmail such as Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo Mail. -- Featuring secure connections, Opera Mini makes all Web transactions safe, including banking or shopping on eBay or Amazon. -- Opera Mini is globally available free of charge and enables Web browsing on almost any mobile phone. Only an Internet data plan through your carrier/operator is needed to access the Internet. New features in Opera Mini: -- Easy photo sharing -- RSS Feed Reader -- Secure banking/shopping -- Content folding -- Faster surfing Screenshots: http://www.operamini.com/img/mini/screen/myspace.png http://www.operamini.com/img/mini/screen/hotmail.png http://www.operamini.com/img/mini/screen/facebook.png Link to download: http://www.operamini.com/ How Opera Mini is user-friendly

Opera Mini is available for almost any mobile phone. A start page provides users options to type in a Web address, search with Google or access their bookmarks. Opera Mini is optimized to reduce the size of data transferred to the phone, which makes browsing fast and cheaper for users that pay per kilobyte transferred. Content folding improves the user experience by reducing the amount of scrolling before users reach the main content of a site. Secure connections make all online transactions safe, allowing users to bank or shop from their phones.

Mobile Social Networking

Users are able to access and interact with all of their community sites. Opera Mini can now allow users to launch their phone cameras through their browser to instantly publish photos to their e-mail, forum or blog. The integrated RSS feed reader keeps preferred news and content one click away in the browser. Users get the information they want sent directly to their phones.

Market adoption

In 10 months, Opera Mini has inspired more than eight million users to surf more than two billion pages and embrace the benefits of mobile browsing. Industry leading operators, such as T-Mobile International and Telefonica Moviles, have installed Opera Mini on select handsets in order to offer their subscribers everything the Web can instantly provide, including mobile social networking and personal Web-based services. Content providers such as 4INFO and Mobileplay, are also seizing the opportunity to instantly mobilize online access by distributing Opera Mini.

What the Opera CEO thinks

"We are excited to improve on the mobile Web experience that has already been so well received by both end users and distributors," says Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. "I think the main reason for Mini's success is that it, for the first time, allows millions of people to use their mobile phones to access the same Web sites they do from their desktop."

When a Web page is accessed using Opera Mini, it is first sent to a remote server where it's compressed to reduce the size of the data transferred before sending it to the phone. This compression enables the processing of Web pages on even basic phones and also reduces the costs associated with browsing and data transferring for subscribers of limited data plans.

Can Web developers test for Opera Mini compatibility? There are a few things developers can do to ensure sites display properly in Opera Mini. -- Develop sites according to open Web standards. To validate your webpage, right-click with your mouse on the page using the Opera desktop browser, then select 'Validate' or visit: http://validator.w3.org/ -- Test sites in the free Opera desktop browser. All Opera browsers (Desktop, Mobile, Nintendo Wii, etc) use the same rendering engine. -- Use the built-in small-screen emulator in the Opera desktop browser. Select Shift + F11 to engage Opera's Small-Screen Rendering(TM) and render the viewed site as it would on a small screen, like that of a mobile phone. What Opera Mini usage reveals: -- 8 million users -- More than 2 billion Web pages viewed -- Frequently visited sites include: Google Search, MySpace, Yahoo!, Hotmail and Gmail -- Countries with leading usage: USA, UK, China, Russia and India -- 9 operators/carriers, such as T-Mobile and Telefonica have pre-installed Opera Mini in select handsets -- Content providers such as 4INFO and Mobileplay have branded versions of Opera Mini to deliver their Web-based content and services Opera Mini advantages: -- Content providers can instantly mobilize Web-based services directly to end users in the mass market. -- End users can easily browse and interact with the Web at high speeds and low costs on their current handsets. -- Handset manufacturers can make their phones more attractive by including a mass-market and user-friendly Web browser on their handsets. -- Operators can offer the same branded Web experience to all of their customers regardless of the handset being used, thereby significantly increasingly ARPU throughout the entire customer base. About Opera Mini(TM)

Opera Mini is a free mobile Web browser designed to bring the real Web to the world's mobile phones. The free Opera Mini(TM) mobile Web browser launched worldwide in January of 2006, and is available both as a free download from http://www.operamini.com/ as well as through pre-installments on selected handsets from leading operators and handset manufacturers such as T-Mobile and Telefonica.

Opera Mini is globally available free of charge at http://www.operamini.com/. A mobile Internet Data Plan and is required by carriers/operators to access the Internet. Java support is required to run Opera Mini.

About Opera Software ASA

Opera Software ASA has redefined Web browsing for PCs, mobile phones and other networked devices. Opera's cross-platform Web browser technology is renowned for its small size, performance and standards-compliance, while giving users a faster, safer and more dynamic online experience. Opera Software is headquartered in Oslo, Norway with offices around the world. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OPERA. Learn more about Opera at http://www.opera.com/.