Facebook Tests Faster, 'Lite' Version of the Site

While there have been plenty of steps and signs that the social networking site is slowly morphing into “Twitter with profiles," the new Facebook Lite, which some lucky random users got to test these past days, is as clear as it gets. The new design is, as the name would imply, a simplified version of the site, which bears a striking resemblance to Twitter's.

“We are currently testing a simplified alternative to Facebook.com that loads a specific set of features quickly and efficiently. Similar to the Facebook experience you get on your mobile phones, Facebook “Lite” is a fast-loading, simplified version of Facebook that enables people to make comments, accept Friend requests, write on people’s Walls, and look at photos and Status updates,” the official statement said, after news about the new design started to spread.

The new version of the site, still considered in beta, was made available to a few users a couple of days ago but it now seems that the test was bigger than Facebook originally intended due to an internal mistake, and since then the number of users presented with the announcement of the “lite” version has been scaled back. Facebook also added that the site was tested in countries where it was seeing a lot of growth and was meant as an alternative to new users who might not be familiar with all of the features. The full version of the site, which is becoming rather cluttered, could be overwhelming and all the features may seem daunting to users new to social networking, especially one less tech savvy.

The design itself is stripped down very much, with a greater emphasis on the stream. To be fair, while it does resemble Twitter's spartan interface, the “lite” version actually looks more like FriendFeed, which, coincidently or not, was recently acquired by the social networking giant. Facebook had been, in fact, “borrowing” FriendFeed features way before it acquired it so the similitude should come as no surprise. Still, the move could prove a good one if the site wants to become a greater hub for sharing content like links, photos or videos.