Just seven months after first launching Facebook Lite, the company has decided to shut the service down. Facebook Lite was a simplified version of the site which was supposedly “optimized for people with slow connections” but apparently not enough people were using it. Funny enough, many of the people that I knew were using the site were users with fast connections who liked a slimmed version of the site.
First noticed by ReadWriteWeb, Facebook has not said anymore aside from the following message which they posted on the company’s Facebook Page:
Thanks to everyone who tried out Facebook Lite. We’re no longer supporting it, but learned a lot from the test of a slimmed-down site. If you used Lite, you’ll now be taken to the main Facebook.com site.
While the company has made numerous attempts at creating slimmed down versions of the site, I would guess that maintaining both the main version of the site as well as the simplified versions simultaneously has proven difficult. Additionally, Blake Ross, who was the developer behind Facebook Lite, is now focused on other projects including the new Facebook questions product.
COMMENTARY: When Facebook first announced Facebook Lite, I predicted that it would never make it against Twitter. So it comes as no surprise to me that Facebook saw the handwriting on the wall and killed Lite, and cutting its losses.
I don't know how many times I have said this, but there are several golden rules of technology entrepreneurship and innovation that I adhere to, and so should entrepreneurs, and they go something like this:
- Never launch a new product or service just to have something out there. Being just "another one of them" does not work. Do your beta-test first. Get the feedback, and it looks promising, make the changes and do a second beta-test just to make sure. If you get excellent feedback, then you have yourself a possible winner. Facebook did not do this.
- Never launch a new product or service into the marketplace unless it is vastly superior to that of the competition. Incremental improvements do not work. Your new product or service must be earth shattering, give everybody an "aha" moment. The technology must be breakthrough or disruptive and game changing. EXAMPLES: Apple iPhone, with smartphones and iPad (I am holding off a bit, and just because Steves Jobs says so, but it is just too early to tell) with tablet computers and eBook readers.
- Never enter a market that is highly concentrated or dominated by a major industry leader(s). The advantages go to the bigger companies in that industry. EXAMPLE: Bing and Yahoo have both tried to crack Google's dominance in the Internet search sector, with some success, but without making a significant dent in Google's market share. Google reins supreme, and I don't see this changing anytime soon. Searchme, a search engine of a different color, is another great example of an idea that was doomed to failure from the start. Sorry Jeff Adams.
- Never enter a market if you do not have experience in that market. Twitter was THE microblogger of all bloggers. Period. If didn't matter that Facebook was a bigger company. In this case monumental size did not offer any advantages. Facebook is a online social network community. Twitter is a blogging community. Two different markets filling different needs. My other theory: Most of the serious microbloggers are already on Twitter. If you are a serious microblogger you have built "brand equity" via followers on Twitter, and are not going to switch over to Facebook and hope your followers will come with you. .
I see this sort of thing all of the time. It is happening in online video sharing, IPTV and social networking. The fallout is everywhere to be seen as industry consolidation starts to set in on these industry sectors.
Courtesy of an article dated April 20, 2010 appearing in All Facebook
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