Opera's CEO to Swim From Norway to the USA

Viggeh! writes "An overly excited Jon S. von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software, today proclaimed at an internal company meeting that if the download numbers of the new Opera 8 Web browser reach 1 million within the first four days of the launch, he will swim from Norway to the USA with only one stop-over for a cup of hot chocolate at his mother's house in his home country, Iceland. The new browser was released Tuesday and was downloaded 600.000 times in the first 48 hours since release. The challenge will end on Saturday at 0900 a.m. CET, so if you want to try out some new software and make the CEO stick to his big words, download it at Opera's webpage(direct link)."

Finally!

[MrChris2]

A piece of slashvertising I can get behind.

Opera rocks and this sort of daft challenge whilst obviously ridiculous is just the sort of fun way of marketing the browser I like.

In other words...

[wowbagger]

In other words:

"I don't think there is a chance in hell of our getting a million downloads in four days, so I will make this grandiose gesture knowing full well I will never have to put up on it - much like the Taco Bell/MIR offer.

However, I will use this PR stunt to get lots of free advertising from lazy reporters who are too stupid to figure out how I am using them."

Shenanigans.

[leetdan]

This is an interesting, and likely successful, publicity stunt. But aren't the waters of the North Atlantic, you know, balls cold? And doesn't the gulfstream tend to flow, you know, the opposite direction?

This is most definitely not happening.

No point.

[whitetiger0990]

I don't see a point... I bet a lot of people will just download it just to see him swim. Then later uninstall it. I'll do that tonight. I wanna see if he holds his words.

Ooo wait... maybe Bill Gates will do something better so that people will keep IE. I could see it now. "Bill Gates jumps pit of acid and a large tub of sharks with laser beams attached to their heads (and it was on fire)."

The obvious answer

[ggvaidya]

It's MARKETING!

I hadn't heard about Opera 8, and if it wasn't for the slashvertisement, I'd've been in the dark.

This is well timed - just today I installed iTunes, was completely bowled over, and was wondering - if a non-free music player can be this cool, what about a non-free web browser?

nice to see them CEOs get out of the comfy office once in a while ...

Re:Why will he do this?

[geoffspear]

Why do you continue to breathe?

Does your breathing improve my web browser's performance somehow?

Do you, through breathing, disrupt Microsoft's monopoly or create world peace?

No, it does not. Your continued living is therefore pointless. Please die.

Cruise Ship

[Ranger]

All he has to do is get on a cruise ship with a swimming pool that is going from Norway to the USA. And he can swim in it 24x7. So technically he is swimming from there to here. That way he doesn't have to worry about things like hypothermia, sharks, giant squid, icebergs, polar bears, or being attacked by a creche of killer penguins.

Why not something realistic?

[192939495969798999]

Why not something realistic, like shaving his head or swimming say, the English Channel? That's only a tens of miles and yet swimming in the ocean (away from the shore) is SO hard that people die trying to swim just that far. No one can or will ever swim the Atlantic without major help from medicine or technology.

Re:Why, exactly...

[maxwell demon]

Can anyone tell me why, exactly, the "direct link" to download Opera from Slashdot points to the Windows version ?

Because this gives a lot of posters getting positive moderation by pointing out this fact, giving a link to the general download page (the latter is almost guaranteed to get +5 Informative) or maybe even by making fun of it.

Re:Hot chocolate?

[Alan Partridge]

Either that or - gasp! - he was J O K I N G.

Re:Direct Link to Win32 version

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate to break your heart, but a vast majority of Slashdot readers are using Windows. By the way, who said you can't be a geek if you use Windows?

Re:600.000 times

[utexaspunk]

Strange, I thought they were called Germans...

Re:Downloaded....

[Anonymous Coward]

So you'll blindly stick with a single product, and you'll never try another web browser? After all, the one you have does the job, right? Hmm, where have I heard that before...

Re:The obvious answer

[AlexMax2742]

It is. Contrary to Slashdot popular beleif, it IS possible to get a great product by paying for it.

Opera is one of them. Sure it seems 'bloated' at first, but most of it is because of lots of little toolbars that you can turn off and never see again within 4 seconds. And even with all this "bloat", it seems to be a lot snappier than Mozilla Firefox. And there are lot of little gemstones around the program that you keep discovering the more you use it. Some of these gem's you'll love and start using on a regular basis (one example of mine was the "drag over a non hypertext URL and right click it and choose "Go to URL"), and others that annoy you (The totally unnecissary chat client) you can turn off and never have to bother with again.

And if the thought of banner ad's for the unpaid version feaks you out, you can even switch the ads to a Google AdWrods bar that's a lot thinner than the standard banner ad....and I know I sure as hell don't mind AdWords, even on webpages.

Give it a try. I've been using the free version since 6.xx, and every time I've tried any other web browser, I've always wound up coming back.