Facebook Cuts Junk Launches Facebook Lite

Sep 21st, 2009 | By Rex Gradeless | Category: Facebook, Featured, Lead Article, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0

Recently, Facebook launched a new version of their site called “Facebook Lite”. This new version, of the social networking platform Goliath that is Facebook, was released for users in India, United Kingdom, and the United States.

In it’s initial conception, Facebook Lite was created with the purpose of delivering faster service to countries that lacked high-speed Internet access.

In order to achieve a faster load time, Facebook cut out most of the junk that currently exists in Facebook and made Facebook Lite much cleaner and easier to navigate.

Facebook Lite will strip your profile of the useless applications such as “How well do you know me?”, quizzes, games, and virtual gifts. Instead, Facebook Lite shows your “Message Wall” with simple options of ‘Write’, ‘Post Photos’, and ‘Post Video’.

The hyperactive ‘Highlights’ in the right-hand column, which shows your friends’ recently tagged photos, the intrusive ‘Suggestions’ box asking you to become a “Fan” of various bands or groups, and the channel on the left-hand side that lets you split your feeds between ‘Family’ and ‘High School’ have all been eliminated! Goodbye junk! Hello Facebook Circa 2004!

Facebook Lite sounds great because it eliminates many bells and whistles of regular Facebook (that just waste your time anyways) and provides users with a much faster platform that can have much more utility for the legal profession, namely collaboration and social networking.

Facebook Lite eliminates most of those annoying applications that are flying all over the screen on regular Facebook. This move by Facebook hearkens back to the original concept of Facebook: a simple tool for social networking.

For me, and many legal professionals I have talked to, this is a dream come true. Most professionals using Facebook, including me, are not into Facebook for the games or dumb quizzes. Facebook Lite seems to be a partial solution to many of the things I have found annoying about Facebook.

When using Facebook Lite, you will notice a new “Events” tab at the top toolbar that streamlines your scheduling. Other features include a much cleaner page, no applications, a “View Top Stories” button towards the top, and your contacts upcoming Birthdays at the top of the page.

Here’s Facebook’s official comment on the new release:

“We decided to roll out Facebook Lite in the U.S. to give users a simple, expedient alternative to facebook.com, and hope that it will fill this need. While the majority of our user base is outside the United States, we’re always working to enhance the new user experience even in markets where facebook.com is easily accessible. We have also found that people who are new to Facebook tend to be most interested in a simpler experience, focus on establishing their network of friends and communicating with them by writing on their walls, sending messages, and looking at pictures. We have introduced the Lite site with these new users in mind.”

Have you used Facebook Lite? Do you see any pros or cons? I would be very interested in your thoughts about this. Please comment below.