Opera: Next Version to Crush Internet Explorer

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Opera chief executive Jon S. von Tetzchner flew in from Norway for an update on the company's Web browser, including the claim that the next version could be about ten times faster than Internet Explorer.

According to von Tetzchner, Opera's is expanding into the mobile market. And, not surprisingly, the upcoming Opera 9.5 revision will be faster and more efficient, he said.

With AOL pulling the plug on Netscape Navigator come February, Opera is now the oldest Web browser still standing. It has less than 2 percent market share in the U.S. but has made strides recently, especially in the mobile arena with the rise of Web-ready smartphones and other handheld devices. According to von Tetzchner, the company's mobile Web browsing platform, Opera Mini, has 30 million users worldwide with around 100,000 new downloads a day.

Opera started working on a mobile browser in 1998, but only recently has there been hardware, such as the Apple iPhone, that has been truly able to take advantage of the software. As a result, it has gained in popularity.

"The iPhone was a great boost for us," von Tetzchner said, adding that what the iPhone does is only a subset of the functionality offered by Opera. Opera is available on 59 phones, as well as on many other devices, such as the Nintendo DS Lite.

On the desktop side, the company has been working on the next update of its Web browser, which will be Opera 9.5. The goal is to make app faster and more efficient. For example, 9.5 will introduce a cache search that will let a user hunt through the history files by keyword; an Opera Links feature will synchronize all the bookmarks among different browsers on a PC. According to von Tetzchner, Opera 9.5 will also show a significant speed boost, thanks to greatly improved Javascript optimization, among other under-the-hood improvements.

"Some tests show it will be twice as fast [as the previous version]" von Tetzchner claimed. "Some tests even show it's as much as 10 times faster than Internet Explorer."

Although the company is still working on building market share in the States, it has become a significant player in the global market. Von Tetzchner told us the browser is popular in the Nordic region and Eastern Europe. Opera has also teamed up with companies like Tata in India to provide less technologically driven populations with mobile Web browsing services. In some areas, Opera mini is the main portal to the Internet. "In Bangladesh more people are getting on the Internet with Opera mini than a PC," von Tetzchner said. "It feels good when you're helping people get online."

The company is looking to hop onto the current trend of moving more software functionality onto the Web, von Tetzchner said. The company has spent a lot of time optimizing the browser to accommodate Web-based software—for example, by working with HTML 5 to create more compact and more accessible code. Doing so will allow more intelligent Web forms, he said. Opera also offers over 1,100 widgets and gives users the ability to create their own.

The company plans to release a beta version of Opera 9.5 in the next two months. The final version should be available by this summer.

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Porn companies challenged by Internet sites

After years of booming sales supported by videotapes, DVDs and the Internet, the adult film industry is being challenged by easy video-sharing Web sites offering explicit content for free.

"We're dealing with rampant piracy, tons of free content," said Steven Hirsch, co-founder of privately held Vivid, the best-known studio making sex films.

Vivid once earned 80 percent of its roughly $100 million a year from DVD sales, but last year that fell to 30 percent, Hirsch said in an interview.

The Internet challenge, a topic of discussion at the biggest adult film expo of the year in Las Vegas this week, has already presented itself to the music industry and other mainstream entertainment.

Much of the Internet competition for the U.S. porn world, largely based in southern California, comes from Web sites like Toronto, Canada-based XTube.com, whose format is modeled after Google's YouTube.

Some of the videos on the XTube site come from commercial studios while others are posted by amateurs.

"We're not pirates. We are providing a service that people think they can use to pirate," said Lance Cassidy, one of XTube's founders.

The Web site has 200,000 free videos, typically 30 seconds to two minutes long, and about 1 percent of visitors buy DVDs or video streams, resulting in millions of dollars of annual revenue, sales director Curtis Potec said. About two thirds of XTube's viewers are gay, Potec said.

"We've had tons and tons of people tell us this is the future of the adult industry," Potec said. "Most of the money is ads, on any site, mainstream or adult."

Scott Coffman, president of Adult Entertainment Broadcast Network (AEBN) in North Carolina, says his company started a YouTube-type site a year-and-a-half ago to generate revenue through advertising and drive traffic to pay-per-minute sites.

AEBN limits free clips to three minutes. Users make about a quarter of them.

"They don't convert that well when you give away so much. There is a fine line between giving away something small, a teaser ... and giving away the whole thing," Coffman said.

He said his company has revenue of about $100 million a year and is facing a lawsuit from Vivid accusing AEBN of piracy.

Vivid's Hirsch says he will sue other video-sharing sites.

"This industry is going to have to get together and look at these guys that are putting out the stuff for free ... so they are going to have to get in line and start paying for it," Hirsch said.

"If that doesn't happen and we see all of this free content out there, people are not going to be able to afford to produce movies anymore."

AIDED BY THE PORN STUDIOS

Videotape, fewer prosecutions, DVDs and Internet advertising created an unprecedented boom the U.S. sex film business since the 1980s.

Many studios post short clips on Internet video-sharing sites as advertising to sell more movies.

"This is something we constantly discuss in our office. Is it too much," said Garion Hall, chief executive of Abbywinters.com, an Australian company featuring lesbians.

Hall said only one out of 500 viewers clicks over to his site from free clips and of those only one in 50 subscribes.

Some adult industry executives say a solution may lie in future distribution deals with big companies such as AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc, Comcast Corp and Apple Inc.

An Apple spokeswoman said the company would not comment if it had held past talks or was interested in distributing adult product. A spokeswoman for Comcast, the largest U.S. cable provider, said the firm offered adult content in its video-on-demand service but said she knew of no talks for mobile adult distribution.

Sales of sex films to mobile devices occur in Europe but have yet to take off in the United States.

"We won't make money through adult content," said Verizon Wireless spokesman Ken Muche.

AT&T did not comment.

Jay Grdina, president of ClubJenna Inc, a division of Playboy, says sharing previews is a mistake. "We're getting bitten by our own sword," he said.

Grdina, former husband and on-scene partner of Jenna Jameson, one of the industry's most famous porn stars, said he has met companies such as Microsoft and Apple to seek wireless and other distribution deals that could allow easy downloads to devices such as iPods.

A spokesman for Microsoft said they were not in talks to distribute adult content.

"The revenues are massive," Grdina said. But "the biggest fear is share price: what are the shareholders going to say?"

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Vudu to Offer HD Movies Online

In a major shift in movie distribution, a high-definition version of the hit ''The Bourne Ultimatum'' will be released through Vudu Inc.'s online service Tuesday -- the same day the DVD comes out.

It is the first of many HD movies Vudu plans to deliver online at the same time DVDs become available.

Owners of Vudu's set-top box, which costs $399, use a high-speed Internet connection to watch the movies they rent and to download the ones they buy.

Movies usually are released in staggered windows in different formats -- DVD, online through Xbox Live and other companies, or on demand on cable.

But Hollywood studios are experimenting more with digital distribution, and a few have agreed to work with Vudu to sell HD movies, though the selection remains limited.

Some in the industry worry that competition between the two high-definition formats -- Blu-ray and HD DVD -- is holding back production in high definition as consumers debate which format to use. For consumers who download movies with Vudu, that choice is not an issue, however.

Universal Pictures, the studio behind the ''Bourne'' movies, is the first to offer a downloadable HD version of a movie the same day as the DVD is released.

In addition to working with Universal, Vudu has signed deals to distribute HD content from Paramount Pictures and Lionsgate Entertainment Corp. Universal is owned by NBC Universal, a joint venture of General Electric Co. and Vivendi Universal, while Paramount is a division of Viacom Inc. Lionsgate is independent.

The Vudu box, which first went on sale in October, offers a catalog of about 5,000 standard-definition films, which can be rented for 99 cents to $4.99. Some films, including the HD editions of the ''Bourne'' films, can only be purchased, meaning they can be stored permanently on the set-top.

''The Bourne Identity,'' ''The Bourne Supremacy,'' and ''The Bourne Ultimatum'' will sell for $24.99 each, though Vudu customers can get the two older movies for free during the holiday season.

Vudu Homepage

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