Credit: Unsplash
Because… you demanded it?
Emojis have one primary purpose: expressing quick, easily-discernable feelings through images. You put them on the end of a message to tell a joke, you respond to a message with one to confirm something. It’s not that complicated, but for some reason, people feel compelled to make it complicated. No, I’m not talking about The Emoji Movie, though that is certainly a good example. I’m talking about Opera’s strange new feature.
The Opera internet browser has implemented a new feature known as “Yats,” produced in partnership with a company called Yat. Yats are, in essence, URLs, but with emojis filling the address bar rather than typical alphanumeric characters. For example, a sequence of rainbow, rocket, and alien emojis would take you to a website owned by singer and celebrity Kesha. Anyone can purchase a unique sequence of emojis to set up their own domain, much in the same way you purchase a regular domain name.
Opera browser now allows emoji-only web addresses https://t.co/K6nVlwFwUn pic.twitter.com/UBTs9El2JH
— The Verge (@verge) February 15, 2022
Why would you want your domain to be a sequence of emojis, you ask? Well, there are two supposed reasons: first, Yat and Opera believe that setting up your own Yats are a fun way to add an additional layer of customization to a website. Second, and perhaps more importantly, Yats can be tokenized as NFTs. Yep, it’s another crypto thing. Apparently, Yat will be allowing users to connects Yats directly to payment methods, which could, in theory, allow one to send and receive cryptocurrency through them instead of with a virtual wallet.
So I guess if someone bought a domain name you really wanted, now you can grab that same in image form rather than text form. And it’ll only cost you several thousand dollars to register. Yay.
