Boy, Opera sure has turned the hype knob to 11 for its Unite technology, which puts a Web server inside Opera 11. It’s not just that it keeps talking about how Unite will reinvent the Web. I just watched a Webcast in which Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner said that Unite is an example not of Web 3.0 or Web 4.0, but of Web 5.0. Um, setting the bar that high seems dangerous–Unite could be quite remarkable, and still fail to match the expectations that Opera is setting up.

Right now, Unite is a technical preview. It’s fun to play with. But tinkering with it and watching Opera’s Webcast has left me with plenty of questions about it. Six of ’em after the jump…

1. Does it make sense to use a computer that’s not on 24/7 as a server? Unite lets me share photos via my laptop, but my laptop is turned off much of the time. If friends or family attempt to check out my pictures when Unite isn’t up and running, they’ll get a nasty error message. It reminds me of the very early days of computer BBSes, when you couldn’t connect to someone’s system if he or she was using the PC that ran the BBS for something else.

2. Will developers hop on board? The first Unite apps are all pretty basic, and do things which are easy enough to accomplish by other means. What’s interesting about Unite is its potential. But will developers seize the opportunity to build interesting Unite applications? Especially since Opera’s share of the browser market remains small?

3. Are the URLs too long? Ones for Unite’s media player, for instance, are in the form http://yourcomputer.youraccount.operaunite.com/media_player/. Which is quite a mouthful. And they’re longer if you’ve password-protected them.

4. How’s the performance? You can do things like putting your music collection on the Web for anyone who wants to listen to it. Which sounds like it might bog down your computer and bandwidth.

5. Is the security good enough? The company didn’t say much about security on the Webcast other than that you can password-protect Unite services. But does putting a server with access to your file system on your computer open you up to more risk of hacking?

6. Will it be influential? Most of the most important features that have ever been introduced by one Web browser have been shamelessly copied by all the other ones. Is Unite the first sign that all browsers will turn into servers? Does it make sense for only one browser to do this?

I don’t mean to sound dismissive–in my first post about Unite, I called it a big idea, and that it is. But it’s a big idea in a fairly rudimentary state, and if I were Opera, I’d quit with the claims about this its introduction being an important moment in world history and concentrate on making it into a useful tool rather than an interesting technology demo.

 
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