Facebook Lite light on Revenue?

Facebook Lite

As you all know Facebook Lite recently launched a month or so back.  For you that don’t know what Facebook Lite is (http://www.lite.facebook.com), it’s a bare bones version of Facebook.  It was made for users in countries that don’t have the same available bandwidth as the technological superpowers (USA, China, Europe, etc).  The new site reminds me of how Facebook was when it first launched.

You had your profile, pictures, events and newsfeed; thats exactly what Facebook Lite is today.  It is kind of refreshing to use now and again as all the clutter is gone and all you see are the essentials.

The simplified version of Facebook Lite means a simplified revenue stream as well.  Facebook Lite doesn’t have nearly as many ads as regular Facebook.  In fact, as I am currently browsing on it I only see one ad per page.  Some pages even have the ad replaced with a feedback link.  This is interesting because Facebook ovbiously doesn’t care very much about revenue for Facebook Lite as of now.  It will be interesting to see if they keep up this lack of advertising on Facebook Lite.  My gut says they have some plan to cash in on the new site.

Another lack of revenue that Facebook Lite fails to bring in, is the money from the applications.  Now, the “payment” for these applications is being able to get all the information from your applications users’.  Facebook Lite doesn’t have apps.  This means that companies both have a hard time collecting information and have a very hard time advertising on Facebook Lite.  No ESPN widgets, no pizza ordering apps, nothing.

Although Facebook’s main source of income isn’t from ad revenue (Facebook ads do historically terrible) and their real value lies in the priceless information they hold from all their users; it is interesting how there really is no direct revenue or sorts from Facebook Lite.  This might be because the site was made for countries with lower standards of living and Facebook figured that they wouldn’t be good target demographics anyways.  But, you would think that Facebook would have something up their sleeve to cash in on their new site.

Especially if technologically advanced countries start to move to Facebook Lite.

How do you think Facebook will cash in on it’s Lite version?

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