Facebook for the Third World: Facebook Lite Enters Testing

Aug 12 2009, 10:00am CDT | by Robert Evans

Last night, a whole bunch of users received emails stating that they had been chosen as beta testers for 'Facebook Lite'. The links contained in these invites did not work, sending users to the same old Facebook they use every day. Confusion reigned, until Facebook came out with an official response and let users know that they had goofed and accidentally sent out a lot of extra beta invites.

TechCrunch's report on the incident includes screenshots from those users lucky enough to see the actual beta page. According to the Facebook team, Lite is a stripped-down version of Facebook designed to load quickly and run smoothly, even on slow connections. It allows users to accept friends, share photos, write on walls, and give status updates.

Many users claim Lite bears a striking resemblance to Twitter, or FriendFeed, but Facebook is not trying to copy either of these services. Facebook Lite isn't even really designed for people in this part of the world. It's purpose is to be a less resource-intensive website that will be accessible to people in countries with slow Internet access. Don't think of Lite as an attempt by Facbook to cash in on Twitter's success, think of it as 'Facebook for the third world'.

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Robert Evans
The excitement about new smartphones, tablets and anything mobile drive Robert to unearth the latest rumors and developments in this fast moving space. He adopted 4G as soon as it become available and knows where the mobile market is going.
Robert can be contacted directly at robert@i4u.com.