Facebook sinks Lite

Facebook has shelved its "lite" version for the bandwidth challenged, saying that the service was a learning experience but one that's no longer needed. Facebook Lite was launched last summer, aimed at developing markets where bandwidth isn't such a ubiquitous commodity, but despite locking some users into it the service was …

[EddieD]

A plague on them...

I liked the Lite interface, it was a good midway between m.facebook and www.facebook - status updates and piccys, but no mafia wars, no bejewelled dash, no lollypops or pillow fights and ah-haha, no monetisation prospects for Facebook...

Ah well, a bit of wrangling with NoScript, AdBlock, NukeEverythingEnhanced and Greasemonkey, I've nearly got it back.

[Sampler]

I quite liked lite

Was great for my mobile, the windows mobile app is a little crap and the mobile version of facebook is too cut down, lite was a nice balance between mobile, app and desktop versions that my TouchPro2 could handle and look good.

[David Gosnell]

Now so much a question of what people want...

... as what makes money, though there is inevitably some overlap. Take out the applications, and they've eliminated a huge revenue stream both for them and for the application producers. The bottom line is that the applications are only a vehicle to get users to watch (and occasionally accidentally even click on) adverts, some of which are sufficiently embedded as to be unavoidable. Don't labour under the misapprehension that MindJolt et al are games companies; they are first and foremost advertisers. If they cared about games they would triage the twaddle they publish rather better, and not force an advert view per play.

[gav_taylor]

was perfect for mobile browsing

been wondering why its stopped working.... I used the lite version of facebook all the time on my mobile.

it was perfect for checking facebook on the mobile without having to worry about farm/stars/chicks/zombies/mafia/etc game notifications clogging up my feed and using up all my bandwidth. It had all the features of the www. version of facebook but without all the c**p.

the touch version of facebook is very limited in what it can do, and I haven't found an app yet that comes close to the features available on lite.

this is a shame

[The Indomitable Gall]

I would have used it...

I have a MIPS netbook that just can't handle full-fat Facebook. As a travel gadget it's dead handy, though -- reasonable battery, optional wifi etc. Facebook always refused to let it use the mobile interface and redirected me to www. -- I couldn't be bothered faking the browser string so I gave up.

Given the "getting stuck in lite" thing, I didn't attempt it.

So I just don't use Facebook on the road.

[P.Nutt]

Nooooo

Why didn't Facebook not just pull the plug on Farmville, Zooville and Mafiawars instead, I have actually deleted friends who done nothing but play those games resulting in me getting pages and pages of crap posted.