A month ago we reported that Facebook was beta testing a ‘lite’ version of its popular social networking site. http://lite.facebook.com has just become available to U.S. users. The lite version offers users a “faster, simpler version of Facebook.” Judging from what we have seen so far, Facebook Lite turns Facebook into a very Twitter-like experience. Facebook Lite has comment threading, more features than Twitter and no word count limits. But the influence is plain to see.
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It’s a been a busy news day at Facebook. Earlier today Facebook launched a new Twitter-like tagging feature, plus they announced it has open sourced the real-time web development framework that runs its new acquisition Friendfeed.
We’re hearing the term “Twitter-like” a lot in regard to Facebook’s announcements these days – just as earlier in the year Facebook was apt to copy Friendfeed. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery indeed, but remember that Facebook’s user base is still much larger than Twitter’s.
It’s a tried and true strategy for big Internet companies (ref Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL): copy the best new features from smaller startups and gradually introduce them over time to a mainstream audience. Even though Twitter is nearly mainstream, its only just broken into the comScore top 50 sites in the U.S. – whereas Facebook is now in the top 5.
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