Facebook launches ‘Lite’ version

Facebook is launching a ‘Lite’ service which it says is intended for mobile phones and countries with limited bandwidth.

Some commentators have speculated that Facebook Lite could be the company’s attempt to rival Twitter, which it attempted to buy in 2008.

Facebook said in a statement: “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.”

Yesterday the company acquired real-time search service FriendFeed, which lets users access their social media accounts from one place.

Facebook also rolled out a new search service yesterday allowing users to search the site in a similar way to Twitter and find trending topics as they happen in real-time.