Facebook Lite
Quick weblog about the new Facebook Lite service
Author: Matthew Wittering | Published: 11th September 2009
As I am writing this post I am extremely excited about the prospect of a faster and simpler version of Facebook. At the moment the new Facebook Lite service is only available for users from India and the United States of America.
The new version of the popular social network used by over 65 Million users world wide is aims and users with slower internet connections. Screenshots of the new service on the CNET News Web Ware blog shows fewer links to features and greater emphasis towards the content and advertisements.
The BBC News Websites provocatively describes the news services as "Facebook strips down to Lite site". The concept of find exposing the core features to user on slower connections will undoubtedly increase page impressions and advertisement revenues. Below is the very attractive new homepage decorated with hot air balloons.
Screenshot 1: Facebook Lite, Credit Facebook.
I personally believe that the new service when launched in the United Kingdom will be popular with users on notebook and netbook devices on shared connection in coffee shops and other wireless hotspots. No doubt the service will be used by patrons to quickly modify their status, reply to messages and view new photos. Very typical behaviour you will agree. The advantage of the Lite service will hopefully be faster loading and with less JavaScript failures which in my experience of Facebook are becoming increasingly more common. I believe that this is a sign of the user base out growing the capacity of the programming; akin to the scaling of Twitter.
Creating stable distributed networks of computers for cloud computing still appears to be a complicated exercise. Google are the experts in the distributed applications across geographically divers infrastructure. Despite this mantel the company continues to have traffic management and application availability issues for Gmail and other applications. Once again due to the popularity of the services.
In summary I think the new services will be popular among the users base. I do hope this announcement is not just a lot of hot and creates some momentum for their new interface.
Links
- http://www.facebook.com
- http://lite.facebook.com
- http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10350121-2.html
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8249835.stm
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence
I am a graduate of Lougborough University where I read Computing and Management BSc (Hons) earning a 2:1 classification.