Twitter launches a “lite” mobile website

Twitter announced today it's launching a mobile web app called Twitter Lite aimed at emerging markets.

The app makes it easier to load up Twitter on your smartphone or tablet if you have slow mobile networks, expensive data plans or a lack of storage by launching a mobile website on your browser.

Product manager Patrick Traughber made the announcement in a blog post and stated that the new experience "minimizes data usage, loads quickly on slower connections, is resilient on unreliable mobile networks, and takes up less than 1MB on your device".

He also claimed it's 30% faster to launch and offers quicker navigation on Twitter, while still including key features such as direct messages, trends and notifications.

There's also a data saver mode where users can "see a preview of images and videos before choosing which ones to fully load". Traughber said it can reduce data usage up to 70% making it more affordable to use the app in areas where mobile data is expensive.

Users can also receive push notifications from the site and it can be added to the home screen of their device.

"[Twitter Lite] is a great way for many people in emerging markets across Asia Pacific, Latin America and Africa to experience Twitter for the first time on their mobile devices," said Traughber.

He added that Twitter has partnered with Vodafone in India to promote Twitter Lite to its customers "to get live sports updates on Indian Premier League matches, teams, and players as the cricket season kicks off". This is more good technology news for India, where it's thought that WhatsApp may launch peer to peer digital payments via its app soon.

Main image credit: Twitter