Opera announced today that its web browser is the first to support emoji-based web addresses, bringing a new level of creativity to the Internet.

“It’s been almost 30 years since the world wide web launched to the public, and there hasn’t been much innovation in the weblink space: people still include .com in their URLs,” Opera executive vice president Jorgen Arnesen writes. “Through the integration with Yat, Opera users are able to ditch .com or even words in their links and use emojis to be directed to websites. It’s new, it’s easier and more fun.”

Yat currently lets users create unique strings of emojis as personal identifiers online, and through its partnership with Opera, you can now easily find Yat pages, which are unique domains that are generated when a Yat is created from a personalized string of emojis. For example, Lil Wayne’s Yat page (👽🎵) directs users to his record label, while Kesha’s (🌈🚀👽) points to her Twitter presence.

“With over 90 percent of the 4.6 billion internet users around the globe using emojis to express themselves, Opera’s integration of Yats unlocks a new easy way for people to be present on the web,” Arnesen explains. “The integration is equally about functionality as it is expression. Instead of typing in numerous alphanumeric characters into a URL, Opera users get the ability to express themselves on the web.”

And, yes, I checked. It’s Valentine’s Day, not April Fools Day.

Tagged with Opera