Opera Unite – Sharing Content Directly

Opera Unite launched earlier this week, providing services that make it possible for users to share content seamlessly with one another via the Web with no need for uploads! Many tech blogs like TechCrunch are all over this.

Warning, *dork* attempt at a poetic verse: “The cloud just got lighter and can probably fly higher.”

Read the Introduction to Opera Unite.

Anyways, this is great news (and let’s see how long it lasts before someone makes it a security issue or unscrupulous hackers find a way to take advantage of the system). Right now, most of the applications that let you share content from your computer to the internet require at least an initial upload or are limited to small files, etc. The services offered in the Opera Unite bundle (with more to come since they are letting developers design apps to their service) create a direct connection through the Web to your audience’s computers without the need for an uploads or plugin downloads on the viewers’ side. Basically turning any home computer into powerful Web servers.

I love the idea of sharing with no FTP, no middlemen…

It seems to be a one way road still, meaning I give my friends access to certain folders (or websites) on my computer and they can see access those files. I am still not sure (haven’t done enough testing) to see if they can then put their own files in that folder I shared with them, making it a mutual file repository.

In the future, it would be interesting to see them design something that would allow for file EDITING online for easy simultaneous collaborative authoring, similar to what LiveDrive does with Zoho and iPaper integration.

from TechCrunch