A look at Facebook emerging markets with Instagram Lite | Digital

Facebook is releasing a backhaul version of Instagram that uses the least data by focusing on a handful of features and looking to recruit the next level of users – the ones that stay in rural and remote communities.

The new app, Instagram Lite, will be available to Android users and only requires 2 megabytes to download – much less than the full-size version, which is closer to 30 megabytes.

The app is being rolled out to more than 170 countries today (March 11), including India, Thailand and Indonesia, followed by a wider global launch soon. ”, Said Facebook.

The download is lighter as a result of parking back features and downloading much of the code from the app and running it in the cloud instead.

The app focuses heavily on video and messaging, which the company said remote residents use more actively than their urban counterparts. It doesn’t carry Instagram Shopping or many of the interactive features that Instagram has become associated with, such as the ability to make Reels and use AR filters, favoring features that require less data for processing, such as GIFs and stickers.

Notably, the app is without ads.

A dark mode, which allows users to switch from a bright white background to a black one with gray text, will be added to the app upon request during user testing.

“For people who live in communal areas and close to places, it’s very important to browse more privately and not disturb those around them,” explained Michelle Lourie. Facebook’s product manager, who is part of the team responsible for developing Instagram Lite.

The developers also redesigned images to make their purpose clearer to people coming to the internet. For example, they found during a test that the garbage dump image did not rise as a symbol for disposal, so it was changed to “X”.

Lourie and her team in Tel Aviv worked with a New York-based team integrating Instagram engineering, production, design, and research to develop the new app.

They borrowed learning from the Facebook Lite development, which was also created out of Tel Aviv. Facebook Lite was launched in 2015 in developing countries, and then rolled out to major markets like the US since 2018. It now has over 200 million monthly active users, according to Tzach Hadar , a product management manager for all Facebook Lite apps, based in Tel Aviv.

In a blog post announcing Instagram Lite, Hadar said: “Our teams build these lightweight versions of our apps for people with low connections or limited data plans because our basic concept is no one leave. “

“We wanted the Instagram experience to remain fast, high-quality and reliable, no matter what device, platform and network people are on.”

Facebook also launched a lightweight version of Messenger in October 2016 and it was rolled out to the U.S. and other markets in 2017.