Facebook recently teamed up with 50 wireless operators for offering a stripped-down version of the social networking site to cellphone users. This facility will allow users to access without incurring data charges.
This new site, dubbed 0.facebook.com, can be termed as a text-only version of flagship internet site of Facebook and is particularly designed for mobile phones with limited bandwidth Internet connections.
From in.news.yahoo.com:
The new site will be available beginning on Tuesday in 40 different countries, including Brazil, India, Indonesia and Turkey from a variety of carriers.
The new site comes as the world’s largest Internet social network continues to grow its base and looks for ways to increase the amount of time Web surfers spend using its service.
At the company’s annual developer’s conference last month, Facebook introduced new technology that allows third-party Web sites to integrate Facebook features directly.
Roughly one quarter of Facebook’s 400 million users access the site on mobile devices, according to the company.
But Facebook wants to make the service more accessible to cell phone users who do not own high-end smartphones such as Apple Inc’s iPhone, or phones based on Google Inc’s Android software.
“We are targeting people whose major barrier is they have little experience on the mobile Internet. They want to try it, they want something super simple, super fast. And they are potentially afraid of browsing costs,” said Henri Moissinac, who heads Facebook’s mobile business. “If you take an iPhone user in San Francisco, that’s not his problem.”
Among the carriers partnering with Facebook are Reliance and Videocon in India (with Tata Docomo coming soon), T-Mobile in Hungary and Vodafone in Greece.
Henri Moissinac, who heads Facebook’s mobile business, said though this service is presently not available in the United States, the same is expected in the near future.
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Tags: Facebook, networking site, social network, Social Networking
