Facebook Lite Goes Live, Sort Of

Social networking hub Facebook on Tuesday rolled out a slimmed down version of its Web site to a test audience, but inadvertently exposed the so-called Facebook Lite edition to a much larger audience than it intended.

"This evening, the test was temporarily exposed to a larger set of users by mistake," Facebook officials said in an official statement on the matter, posted by the blog TechCrunch. "We have not opened up access to lite.facebook.com to all users at this time. People who are not part of the test and are trying to access 'Lite' will be directed to Facebook.com as usual," said the officials.

Facebook described its lighter cousin as an effort to create a version of the site that loads specific features quickly and easily. Such features could make Facebook a better fit for mobile devices, while some commentators described the project as a plan to add a microblogging service that could eventually challenge Twitter.

"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," said Facebook.

Officials said the company plans to introduce Facebook Lite "in countries where we are seeing lots of new users coming to Facebook for the first time and are looking to start off with a more simple experience."

Some observers suspect Facebook is looking to add a bevy of new features in order to position itself as a one-stop site for social networking, blogging, and search.

Facebook on Monday introduced beefed up search features that allow users to search for 30 days worth of news feeds, status updates, photos, links, and videos. Also this week, Facebook announced the acquisition of Friendfeed, which aggregates posts from a variety of social networking sites.