Twitter Testing Lite Version Of Its Android App
Twitter is looking to join the ranks of Facebook and Google by testing a lite version of its Android app for its data-conscious users. The micro-blogging site already introduced a a streamlined version of its mobile site called Twitter Lite and is planning on taking this one step further.
The app offers pretty much the same experience as the mobile site. This means it will still provide all the key features of the main Twitter app including timeline, Tweets, Direct Messages, trends, profiles, media uploads, notifications, and more.
The main difference is that it will still work efficiently on 2G and 3G networks. The app will also feature a data saving "media free" mode that blurs out images and videos that requires permission from the user to view using data will.
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The Twitter Lite app is currently exclusive to Android devices and is being made available via Google Play in the Philippines. The main reason behind the limited release of the app is due to the fact that data-friendly apps are geared towards attracting users in emerging markets where 4G connectivity and wireless networks are unreliable or sometimes nonexistent.
Twitter currently has 68 million users in the US and 260 million in other countries around the world. This means that large chunk of its users are in emerging markets and the app could help in expanding its user base, something that the company seems to be struggling at the moment.
However, this doesn't mean that the app will only be released in emerging markets as there are other parts of the world where data plans are expensive. Customers in these places often look for ways to minimize their data usage and a lite version of an app that would go a long way in accomplishing this.
The lite app is still just an experiment, however, meaning full-fledged release outside the Philippines is yet to be confirmed.
