Social networking giant Facebook has launched Facebook Lite, a new streamlined version of its service designed to appeal to people with low-bandwidth or low-quality Internet connections. It’s probably no coincidence that Facebook Lite comes across a lot like micro-blogging service Twitter, but the site may also be appealing to new Facebook users who find the mainstream site too chaotic and overwhelming to take in at first glance.
Facebook Lite is currently only available in the United States and India, although the company is working on additional translations of the Lite site for other markets like China and Russia.
Rather than offering the whole panoply of widgets, add-ins, applications, and features of the full Facebook site, Facebook Lite focuses almost exclusively on messages, events, status updates, along with providing users ways to get to photos and videos if they like. Facebook Lite doesn’t offer applications…which has some long-time Facebook users flashing back to earlier app-free incarnations of the service.
Although the company insists Facebook Lite is mostly intended to expand Facebook’s appeal in developing markets, industry watchers note the availability of the Lite version in the United States may be particularly appealing to mobile users trying to access the site with a browser, rather than a dedicated Facebook application build into their phone.
