Opera Now Has Emoji-Based Web Addresses

Opera announced its partnership with Yat. (photo: doc. opera)

JAKARTA - Opera announced its partnership with Yat, to integrate its Web3 browser on emoji-based web addresses. This new collaboration brings a new level of creativity to the internet.

Yat is a startup that sells URLs with emojis in them and owns the Y.at domain. Opera says the emoji-centric integration makes it easy for people to find and be directed to their Yat page, which is a unique domain generated when Yat is created from a personalized set of emojis.

After integration, Opera's Yat emoji web address no longer needs to be followed by .y.at as before. In addition, emojis embedded in web pages will now be linked to the appropriate Yat page automatically.

“This partnership marks a major paradigm shift in how the internet works. It's been almost 30 years since the world wide web was launched to the public, and there hasn't been much innovation in the web link space, people still include .com in their URLs," said Jorgen Arnesen, Executive Vice President of Mobile at Opera, in a statement.

"Through the integration with Yat, Opera users can remove .com or even words in their links and just use emojis to be directed to websites. This is new, easier and more fun," he added.

According to TechCrunch, Tuesday, February 15, users can customize their Yat page or redirect it elsewhere on the web. Several celebrities have become early adopters of the Yat page.

Such as DJ Steve Aoki, who uses his Yat page to direct people to his website, and rapper Lil Wayne who will also lead users to his record label. Likewise singer Kesha, has her Yat link in her Twitter bio.

Of course, users can buy their own emoji-enabled domain name and use it instead of a Yat link, but Yat has made this process quicker and simpler for those who don't have the time, resources or technical expertise to do so.

However, it is not free. The fewer emoji characters in Yat, the more expensive it will be. The announcement of this integration comes when Opera recently launched its web3 Crypto Browser in beta.

Web3 includes features such as a built-in crypto wallet, easy access to cryptocurrency exchanges or NFTs, support for decentralized applications (dApps) and more. The purpose of the browser is to simplify the web3 user experience.