Facebook launches new ‘lite’ app: Nyasa Times in it for Malawi

Malawians who  struggles to access Facebook due to slow  internet connectivity have something to smile about as Facebook has launched a new version of its social network app, designed to give access to web users in areas with poor connectivity.

The app, called Facebook Lite, is 1% of the size of Facebook’s main app and allows users to view notifications, scroll through a news feed and post status updates.

“We built Facebook Lite to be faster, more reliable and very data efficient even when internet bandwidth is at a minimum,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post. “The app is less than 1MB in size and takes just a few seconds to download.

Facebook Lite app is designed for use in developing countries such as Malawi where mobile data services can be spotty, slow and with low-bandwidth.

Other attempts currently being undertaken by Zuckerberg to bring Facebook to a wider audience include the Internet.org initiative .

Facebook’s has put Nyasa Times as the Malawi online news website on its “free mobile data” Internet.org scheme which means Malawians can access on free internet service .

The idea behind the Internet.org project’s app is to make the internet accessible to more people by providing a set of free basic services.

The Internet.org application will be available to subscribers of TNM and Airtel Malawi.

Internet.org allows subscribers of partner mobile networks to use a limited number of online services without further charge.

The scheme had been typically limited to a few dozen services which include Facebook, BBC News, Nyasa Times, the Wikipedia encyclopaedia, Bing, Mycfinder, Ask, Dictionary.com, UNICEF (Ebola Information), ESPN, UNICEF (Facts for Life). FunDza., Nike Foundation. (Girl Effect). Goal. UN Women (iLearn), Supersport and Translate.com

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