Opera Unite Could Be The Next Generation Of Turnkey Websites (And Games)

Google wants you to think of their App Engine as a way for developers to build scalable websites that can grow to handle any load. I view it as having the potential to be a simple turnkey way for any user to say, “I want a site that does X,” and have someone install the software to do that on App Engine for them. Then they pay a monthly fee (which covers both Google’s fees and the profit for the developer) and they’ve got a new site to do whatever they wanted. Many people’s software needs are simple and can be easily met with off the shelf software. It’s true of the software on the machine in front of you (you probably use very little custom software and mostly things that are used by huge numbers of other people) and it’s equally true of the Internet.

Today if you wanted to run a PBBG you don’t necessarily have to know how to program or design websites. You can get packaged game software for a fairly small amount of money that will let you setup a “Mafia” game or a handful of other common genre’s. The games are generally pretty crude, setup and customization is still probably more than many people are up to, but you can see where it’s heading. Stick something like Google App Engine in there so the user gets it all setup and running as part of the fee and you’ve improved the status quo massively.

Now Opera (the browser people) have come up with another possible variation on the same idea. They’ve built a web server that comes with their browser. It uses UPnP or their proxy servers to expose software you install locally out to the outside world so you can have something you run locally which will be used by just by you and others you decide to let in. Opera Unite, their name for this innovation, doesn’t have any games yet but it’s not hard at all to imagine someone putting one together.

Think of something as easy to install as add-ins are for Firefox users (you just pick them from a catalog) and a given user has a new game running for him/herself and friends. That sounds pretty damn cool to me. I hope to see the same thing in Firefox and Chrome very soon.