14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook is pretty serious when it comes to its promises and of them is pretty bold, to offer the billion people who access Facebook every day the best possible experience regardless of their Internet connection.
Unfortunately, that wasn't possible until today in regions with slow mobile networks and Facebook couldn't do a thing about it since it was the carriers that had to improve the network infrastructure.
Well, the good news is Facebook has come up with a different approach, so besides investing in network infrastructure in these regions, it has just released a new Android application that is extremely light on mobile data usage.
Dubbed Facebook Lite, the application is only 1MB in size, so even those users with access to 2G solely will be able to download and install it fast enough.
How did Facebook come up with this idea? Apparently, they thought of what an application would need to work well in these developing market.
It works on any Android phone, it loads fast on any mobile connection, and uses little data
First of all, such an application needs to work on any Android phone because in these regions people can't afford mid-range or high-end smartphones.
Next in line, the application will have to be fast on loading even on 2G mobile connections. Last but not least, it needs to use as little mobile data as possible.
“More than a billion people around the world access Facebook from a range of mobile devices on varying networks. In many areas, networks can be slow and not able to support all the functionality found in Facebook for Android.
“Facebook Lite was built for these situations, giving people a reliable Facebook experience when bandwidth is at a minimum,” said Vijay Shankar, product manager for Facebook Lite.
Even though it's so small and light on mobile data usage, the application offers all the core experiences in the full version of Facebook, including News Feeds, status updates, photos, notifications and more.
According to developers, Facebook Lite will be rolled out beginning today in countries across Asia. In the coming weeks, the application will be launched in parts of Latin America, Africa and Europe.
