David Flynn14 September 2009, 9:50 AM
New Facebook Lite isn’t quite so ‘in your face’ – it’s a leaner, cleaner and dare we say more Twitter-esque look without the overload of apps, ads and other distractions.
If you’re finding that Facebook is a little too ‘in your face’ these days try switching to the new Facebook Lite service unboxed over the weekend at
lite.facebook.com.
Facebook Lite is a fast-loading, simplified alternative view of Facebook.com that loads a specific set of features quickly and efficiently, the company says.
It strips the social networking service back to its core features, which also means going back to the days before we were driven made by apps and advertisements, requests and ‘highlights’.
The back-to-basics experience is all about enabling people to “make comments, accept friend requests, write on people’s walls, and look at photos and status updates” explains the company.
The user interface has also been pared back and the size of the pages themselves reduced accordingly, with anywhere from a half to a quarter of the download footprint compared to the standard Facebook service.
The streamlined Facebook Lite (above) looks cleaner and loads faster than the conventional service (below)
The official line is that Facebook Lite was created for users with relatively slow PCs and definitely slow Internet connections, from ironically narrow ‘broadband’ pipes all the way back down to dial-up. It’s also better for the inbuilt browser of smartphones which don’t have a Facebook App installed.
However, Facebook Lite is also aimed at newcomers to the service. “We have also found that people who are new to Facebook tend to be most interested in a simpler experience” the company explains. “(They) focus on establishing their network of friends and communicating with them by writing on their walls, sending messages, and looking at pictures.”
Of course, Facebook Lite is also expected to prove popular with casual users of the service who initially or eventually used Facebook for the same reasons they now use Twitter – a simple way to keep in touch with a large and loose network of contacts.
The spare design and no-fills approach is better for delivering small bursts of information without all the associated noise of Facebook apps and extras.
It’s no accident that Facebook Lite comes as Twitter continues to surge ahead in popularity and mainstream acceptance, especially due to the prevalence of Web-connected mobile phones permitting Twitter updates from almost anywhere.