Opera to reinvent the web – web waits for fat lady to sing

By Sterling “Chip” Camden
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

In the David vs. Goliath battle of the browsers, Opera has always played the part of the mosquito – it preys on both of the major contestants, but it doesn’t eat much (although it has chewed out a nice niche in the mobile browser market).  You’ve got to admire them for having the guts to go up against Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, and now even Google.

Well, it appears that Opera’s hubris knows no limits.  Now they’re promising to reinvent the web, on Tuesday.  I can’t help envisioning a to-do list:

• Sunday:  mow the lawn, fix broken down-spout
• Monday:  pick up the cleaning, dentist appointment @2PM
• Tuesday:  reinvent the web

Yeah, that’ll take all day.

Seriously, though – that’s about all they’re saying on the subject – apart from a cryptic narrative in their Twitter stream that duplicates a comment in the page source for the announcement:

We start our little story with the invention of the modern day computer.

Over the years, the computers grew in numbers, and the next natural step in the evolution was to connect them together. To share things.

But as these little networks grew, some computers gained more power than the rest and called themselves servers.

Today, millions of people are connected together in a great web …

Tom Clarke speculates that this new innovation may have something to do with cloud computing, since the image on the site (shown above) displays a lightning bolt in the clouds.  He further guesses that it may have something to do with sharing more data across devices (bookmarks, cookies, history, etc.) via the cloud.

I think the folks at Opera might be even more ambitious.  I’m expecting something that runs in the browser and interacts with the cloud in ways that go beyond the traditional HTTP client/server architecture of the web as we know it (including Ajax).

Tomorrow at 9AM CEDT (1AM EDT), we’ll find out whether my prophecy proves proficient, or if I was hoodwinked by their hype.