The U.S. tends to take Wi-Fi, 4G, and other wireless net connections for granted, treating them as a basic utility almost akin to electricity or indoor plumbing. Likewise, as internet speeds have drastically increased over the years, so too has the demand and expectation for connections that allow for rapid upload and download speeds.
Most websites take full advantage of this and build their websites with high connectivity speed in mind. However, internet capabilities are hardly standardized across the globe, a fact which some web services are not only noticing, but finally addressing. Twitter recently began testing a lightweight version of their app as an alternative in areas that lack high connectivity speeds or limited access to better smartphones.
With an active user base of well over 300 million, Twitter has risen from a quirky message posting website into a social media and content powerhouse on par with Facebook and Instagram. Like its counterparts, Twitter improved its mobile accessibility by offering a purpose-driven app, with versions available on Apple and Android devices along with more niche or regionally popular hardware like Windows, Blackberry, and Nokia smartphones.
While apps like these function perfectly on the high-end wireless infrastructure commonplace in the United States, some countries have yet to catch up. The Philippines is one example, and as it happens the country of clustered islands was chosen as the test site for Twitter’s new streamlined app, Twitter Lite.
As its name indicates, the Twitter Lite app, currently being tested on the Android platform, offers a somewhat simplified version of the standard app that is not only more suited to slower internet connections, but also designed to work on phones with limited processing power and storage space, a common problem for budget smartphones. The lightweight app takes up a modest 3 megabytes, making it perfect for phones with limited space. Twitter Lite has a number of options built in to allow users to reduce site load times, such as the ability to shut off high data videos and images. The app still contains plenty of essential Twitter functions, such as notifications, the Timeline, Twitter’s Explore tab, and the ability for users to customize their profile.
Given that the U.S. only makes up 68 million, or about one fifth, of Twitter’s total user base, it’s a wise move for the company to explore means of optimizing their service for other markets. That said, Twitter has stated the project is only an experiment and has no firm plans to make Twitter Lite available in other regions.
