So, we’ve already explained why the newly revealed “Facebook Lite” at the very least wasn’t conceived to be a “Twitter-killer,” but it does look interesting. The service, which is currently being tested in India (and sadly, not in the U.S. despite the messages sent out last night), has an extremely clean look and feel to it — one that is reminiscent of the old days of Facebook, when its simplified look drew users away from the cluttered MySpace. Of course now, Facebook is itself cluttered with settings, applications and toolbars. So to many, this Facebook Lite design would be welcome.
Check it out in the images below we received from a user, Azhar Chougle, testing it in India. He notes that the third image (the one showing something broken) occurs when you try to go to the Events and Settings, which apparently aren’t ready for Facebook Lite yet. You’ll also notice that “Events” is now in the top nav bar, something which is not the case on the current version of Facebook.
Perhaps most importantly, Chougle notes, “And let me tell you it’s so much damn faster than the normal Facebook.” Though neither he nor us understand what is up with the “Send us Your Feedback” guy in picture number 2 (it’s actually Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook’s VP of Growth, Mobile and International). The final picture is my own, significantly more cluttered current Facebook homepage.
So when’s Facebook Pro being released?
Damn..I could have sent you screenshots too (and got some link love to my own poor blog)
where is everyone who were raving about twitter. Where is all the trumpet and drum roll? The stupid service is always down
How much you want to bet they’re going to be offering Facebook lite as a publicly available feed, similar to Twitter… and move everything else back to the private data?
Wow, did Facebook copy Myspace on an idea for a feature?? http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/13/myspace-lite-brings-bloated-profile-pages-down-to-size/
Ooh! Good catch.
It would make a change from MySpace copying everything Facebook does, including the chat bar and trying to “Ajaxify” their site.
Considering how bloated Facebook has gotten (and I’m glad that I’m not the only one that thinks it), a Facebook Lite that loads without bringing anything but Firefox on a Core 2 Duo or better to its knees is a welcome addition.
Facebook is a lesson in how overdoing it makes you just like your competitor. Adding apps has nearly driven them to the same level of clutter and annoyance as Myspace. I block a dozen new apps clogging the news feed with obnoxiously long posts every day.
Funny, apps are really one of the only few things that keep me interested in Facebook. To each their own, I guess.
so much faster, while TC takes forever to load…
“And let me tell you it’s so much damn faster than the normal Facebook.”
Probably because 45 million other people aren’t using it yet ….
Jon – very good point there! But the old FB ran pretty quickly when everyone was on it, so maybe the Lite has its merits.
MG of course it’s a response to Twitter. If your connection was slow, you’d use Twitter rather than the old Facebook too.
would love to have a “lite” version of TechCrunch
no kidding.
it’s called RSS
@sheeshkebab
+1
This seems more of a response to what MySpace did, then to Twitter.
Interested in earnings for the Webmaster?.
I think its more about preparing for real-time streaming than anything else. Their site was already pretty light by international standards:
http://www.trendslate.com/2009/08/12/facebook-lite-could-hint-to-real-time-streaming-product/
The app bloat has been seriously curtailing my Facebook time… My news feed is full of stupid quizzes or games (even tho I block everyone of them put different ones keep coming back). Most of the time it’s not a pleasure (at all) to use Facebook.
wouldn’t it be nice if there was an application WHITELIST, instead of a blacklist?
Facebook?!?… What the **** is facebook?
I think I’ve heard of it… Isn’t it one of those one-day wonders?!?!…
Having just travelled around the world for six months I cannot stress enough how much this is needed. I very nearly gave up on Facebook when even in countries as advanced as Australia and New Zealand load times were around 20seconds a page! I really hope this comes out as a Setting for everyone as soon as possible, looks great!
It will be just like how facebook was before the apps!
@chalkers you might have hit the nail on the head with pro version!
Get rid off useless apps and chat and you have the original version of facebook!
facebook chat has complete removed me from the horrible world that is msn – getting rid of chat would be a disaster in my book
this looks eerily similar to the facebook that i use. i have no left side filters, no sponsors, no ads, and no higlights section. ff + greasemonkey + stylish = WIN
Wow that’s amazing. But twitter headlined this whole idea. I don’t think they’re going to back down on Facebook. http://AppUseful.com
I only ever access Facebook thriugh my iPhone these days, because that gives me all the stuff I’m interested in with none of the clutter. I guess this is the same experience for those without an iPhone.
What will be interesting to see is how many people pick up Lite as their main preference, because this will surely limit Facebook’s aspirations to bolt revenue generating additions on the core service.
A vote against apps and additional features is a vote against paying Facebook a dime to use the service.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
I like the idea of facebook lite; there’s heaps of junk I never use which gets in the way and discourages me from logging in too often. Although disappointed to see status updates still seem to take center stage! I would love an option for facebook without status updates (or even to just keep them on a separate page like on the old facebook so I never have to see them). About 10% of facebook users seem to make about 95% of the status updates (at least in my experience) and it’s always just mindless drivel and spam. It get’s in the way of messaging and photos (the useful features).
So basically it looks exactly like the original facebook looked like?
See, Facebook Lite is pretty much how my FB page looks all the time. But I use Firefox+AdblockPlus+Element Hiding Helper (another FF extension) to get rid of the ads and that hideously obnoxious sidebar, plus a couple of Greasemonkey scripts that hide feed ads. I can’t stand visual clutter like Facebook in its current incarnation.
When I need to access facebook and bandwidth is an issue, I will go to the mobile page, m.facebook.com. it works, but it’s very stripped down and a bit clunky on the navigation. On the plus side, it loads very fast!
In a related post, someone mentioned the iphone version, http://iphone.facebook.com. Same speed as the mobile version, but a tad prettier.
interesting… and it has “Events” up at the top as well.
so, did they just re-purpose the mobile version for a “stripped down” view or is this a first attempt at the FriendFeed integration…so confused and underwhelmed
Very nice. I wonder if Facebook will provide an easy-to-find toggle between regular and light?
Just had a discussion that we haven’t added any new features to one of our apps in over a year; conclusion was that simplicity is what makes it a good app in the first place. Still have to innovate though.
Hmm, lets see how this lite works.. looks interesting though.
Disagree this is not an attempt to be a Twitter killer. Bet the thought process went something like this:
- Sandberg “hey Mark, seen Twitter is gathering pace, why do you reckon?”
- Zuckerberg “well it’s simplar init”
-Sandberg “ok, go go go, new strategy, need a simplar one, right. what we do is buy friendfeed to show we’re still cool. Then announce the Lite Facebook at the same time, to show we can do stuff like that anyway, then we look brilliant, right?”
– Zuckerberg “cool momentums”
- Sandberg “and we tell everyone it means nothing, it’s a test thing, run it overnight so it messes up and looks like we’re still a start up and we’re back in business”
- Zuckerberg “Sheryl, i want to buy you a pizza”.
It may not be a direct Twitter killer but Facebook recognise they have overcooked. By doing some undercooking they will naturally be stepping, quite deliberately on Twitter.
This seems to be so cool!This great news really sounds very interesting.
Thanks for creating this post!
This post brings up a good point about how the Facebook interface has gradually become cluttered like MySpace. The new Lite screenshots look refreshing and simple.
Hopefully we’ll see the lite version in the US – Facebook needs to clear out the clutter.
My feedback for Chamath: try holding the baby upright
This is lame. Facebook should always be fast.
will it be available in europe soon too? it looks great..
Great! Now can they just stop sending me updates of my friends taking another stupid quiz on FB that takes up all the screen real estate, leaving all the important updates from my friends buried somewhere underneath