Lighting Up Facebook Lite

As we creep past the august 9/11 anniversary and find heavy hearts and dulled minds still held in suspension by the failure of our sovereign nation to defend itself from foreign invasion — we can look up to the stars and try to enjoy the new Facebook Lite that went live for everyone yesterday. 

You can taste the clean deliciousness of Facebook Lite by simply clicking here —

http://lite.facebook.com

— and you will get some quickness and snappiness that has not been the older, uglier Facebook we know and loathe.  You can, for now, return to the current “Fat Facebook” just by using the standard URL if “Diet Lite Facebook” isn’t your taste.

Facebook Lite feels like our beloved FriendFeed:  Fast, clean and obsessed with speed.

Here’s what my homepage looks like now.  The status update window is only open if you click on the “Write” button first.

You are encouraged to give your feedback to the new Facebook Lite:

Another interesting nugget found in the new sidebar is the offer to invite two friends to test out Facebook Lite with you.  Your new friends cannot already be Facebook users. 

That tells me that Facebook Lite will soon be known as “Regular Facebook” or just — “Facebook — because it will eventually replace the current “Full Sugar Facebook.”

You can even become a fan of Facebook Lite. 

I did.  I posted a quick love note for the developers:

Notifications now appear at the bottom of your screen in a bar.  You don’t have to look for the tiny notification window in the lower right corner any longer:

Facebook Lite isn’t all there yet — it’s still in beta — and if you currently click on any of the icons in your Settings screen, you’ll get a message that these features are not ready yet and you can return to the “Non-Fat Free Facebook” version.   

I am especially enticed by the “External Websites” setting.  I hope we can use that to import other site content — including more than a single RSS feed — into our Facebook updates. 

We want Facebook to be more like FriendFeed in its ability to to aggregate content and publish it under several banners. 

We like the promise of Facebook Lite and here’s to hoping it becomes our new diet standard sooner than later.