Users of Unite also have the ability to create and share their own Opera Unite services.

Lawrence Eng, an Opera Software product analyst, describes it like this: "The initial applications offered by Opera Unite are just simple demos (such as a "messenger" application and a media player) that replicate existing services and online functionality, showing them working in the context of Opera Unite. That's just the tiniest tip of the iceberg—the potential for what can be done is much larger. The key to Opera Unite is that it enables a whole new class of social software on the Web, applications that benefit from two or more people being online at the same time. And, with Opera Unite, these people can all connect directly without needing middlemen who control third-party servers.

"What Opera Unite offers is an opportunity and a challenge to developers and entrepreneurs who are creative enough to envision new ways that people can interact online, so that computing becomes truly interpersonal."

All mighty and lofty aims, I'm sure.  So what next?

They have to fix a few things.  

For instance, as one commentator noticed, access passwords are crafted as part of the URL.  Ouch!  That was bad form in the 1990s, it is simply crazy, unacceptable behaviour in 2009.  It can only be hoped that this is a temporary measure until the system is fully developed.

Opera Unite is available for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows and will be distributed without charge.

At the moment, Opera enjoys a browser market share of around 0.7% - they clearly hope that Unite will improve this.  Interestingly, they intend porting Unite to the Opera mobile browser, which will make for some very interesting applications in the future – and some very excessive mobile phone bills!