Facebook gets lite, and more like Twitter everyday

Alex Solak – The Aquinian

Facebook loves to redesign itself.  It seems every few months their homepage goes through a massive shift.  They’ve added new features and applications, increased the size of the newsfeed, and have been shoving more items onto their pages.

Today they’ve decided to take a step back with the launch of Facebook Lite.

The new, slimmed down version  strives for an elegant replacement to the face of a decidedly cluttered Facebook. Now the newsfeed is simpler, there are less ads, and a few underused features have been removed.

Lets look at the differences on our Facebook fan page.  Click on the images for a larger version:

The regular Facebook fan page.
The regular Facebook fan page.
The new Facebook Lite fan page

Looks cleaner, doesn’t it?

Facebook lite also loads faster, and would be much easier on those with slower internet connections or dial-up.

Twitterfication

Those who frequent social networking sites will also notice that Facebook Lite is a step in the direction of what the current Twitter homepages look like.  This isn’t a coincidence.

Despite a slow rate of acceptance by teenagers, Twitter is a huge success in the social media world.  Others have taken note and are slowly picking up on the features that make it so popular.

For example, Facebook has announced that soon you will be able to use the @mention feature from Twitter.

On Twitter, anytime you type “@” and then a user’s name, it automatically becomes a hyperlink that connects to that person’s page.
For example if I write “Hanging out, reading @theaquinian” you can click on ‘@theaquinian‘ to be taken to the AQ twitter account.

Soon the same thing will happen with Facebook status updates.  Think of it like tagging photos, but for text too.

A prototype of Facebook's @mention tool

You’ll be able to link up people, but also companies and organizations through their fan pages.

Now we want to know what you think.

Do you prefer Facebook Lite over the original?  Will you ever use it?  What do you think of the twitterfication of the internet?

Just scroll down and leave your comment.  And yes, you can do it with your Facebook account.