Los Angeles — Are you envious for Smartphone users because their status messages are updated every 10 seconds? Well now cheer up, you can do the same. Popular social networking site Facebook has just announced a new mobile app called Facebook for Feature Phones, which brings the social network to more than 2,500 non-smartphones from manufacturers like Nokia, Sony Ericsson and LG, and it also said that the site will be free of cost, i.e. you do not pay for data charges.
The social networking champion Facebook has definitely been able to expand its reach through its more than 200 million mobile users, but it will potentially attract a lot more soon, with its smartphone apps, there is still a significant portion–a majority, actually–of mobile phone users who do not own a smartphone, or maybe even want one.
The social networking giant seems resolute to put itself in front of those consumers as well. Facebook also says it plans to add more carriers in other countries that support its new app within the next few months.
“We want people to have a great mobile experience no matter what type of cell-phone they carry,” said the announcement. “Smartphones have offered better features for sharing with friends but are not used by most people around the world.”
“The app offers a better Facebook experience for our most popular features, including an easier-to-navigate home screen, contact synchronization, and fast scrolling of photos and friend updates,” explained a blog post by Mark Heynen, a program manager at Facebook.
The site is developed in association with Snaptu, a company that specializes in developing stripped down apps for use on so-called “dumb phones,” and will run on more than 2,500 phones which include those from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG and Samsung. It intends to deliver a similar experience to that of its fancier smartphone counterpart.
Facebook has already made deals with carriers across various countries (currently none in U.S.) like Dialog (Srilanka), Life (Ukraine), Play (Poland), StarhHub (Singapore), STC (Saudi Arabia), Three (Hongkong), Tunisiana (Tunisia), Viva (Dominican Republic) and Vodafone (Romania) to make access to the site free of data fee for 90 days to start with. It also said that there are more agreements are underway which include a longer term of no-fees plan.
Furthermore, this will probably help Facebook expand it mobile users in general, the move is especially aimed to grow Facebook’s international user base, particularly in populous countries like India where many use feature phones rather than smartphones — or even PCs for that matter. Earlier, the social networking giant had come up with Facebook Lite which was also targeted at low-end phones, but that was more of a short-lived plan.
One warning though, if you are downloading Snaptu in an attempt to get Facebook, unless you are on a launch carrier it will not work (whether you pay for the data charges or not). It is not clear when this limitation is set to be lifted. Snaptu still has its own unofficial app, which according to TechCrunch is similar to the official one.