Twitter launches a lightweight version of itself with Twitter Lite

Why it matters to you

With 45 percent of global smartphone connections on 2G networks, lightweight versions of apps are key to success. Twitter is jumping on the bandwagon with Twitter Lite.

Facebook has done it, YouTube has done it, and now, Twitter is doing it, too. We’re talking, of course, about offering a lightweight version of the platform to make it easier for users in countries with less robust access to data to use Twitter. On Thursday, Twitter product manager Patrick Traughber published a blog post announcing the debut of Twitter Lite, described as “a new mobile web experience which minimizes data usage, loads quickly on slower connections, is resilient on unreliable mobile networks, and takes up less than 1MB on your device.”

Twitter Lite is a faster, data friendly way for people to use Twitter to see what’s happening in the world.

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— Twitter (@Twitter) April 6, 2017

While smartphone adoption is growing at a rapid rate around the world, infrastructure isn’t necessarily keeping up. In fact, the GSMA reports, 45 percent of mobile connections remain on 2G networks. And given that smartphone adoption is now at around 3.8 billion connections, that’s a lot of phones on slower networks.

More: Lightweight YouTube Go app, planned for release last year, is now available

Enter Twitter Lite, which not only requires less data, but promises 30 percent faster launch times and quicker navigation throughout the platform. Users will still be able to see the core components of the social media service, including timeline, Tweets, Direct Messages, trends, profiles, media uploads, and notifications, but won’t have to worry about downloading a data-sucking app.

And to make things more efficient still, Twitter has added a data saver mode, which shows users a preview of images and videos. That means you won’t have to load every single image — only the ones you really care about, potentially reducing your data usage by up to 70 percent. Twitter Lite also offers offline support so you’ll be able to maintain your session even if your connection is spotty.

Anyone and everyone can check out Twitter Lite today at mobile.twitter.com on a smartphone or tablet. More information can be found at lite.twitter.com, and if you’re interested in learning how the tool was built, you can do that here.