Facebook Lite

Facebook Lite was launched in September of 2009 as a stripped down version of the site that would run faster on underpowered machines, or simply computers with slow Internet connections. Facebook, however, positioned it as a simpler way for newbies to get into the social networking experience.

For instance, users that headed to lite.facebook.com would be greeted to a version of Facebook that did away with Facebook's growing side navigation pane. It also didn't show quite as many advertisements, or the service's "what's on your mind?" posting box.

Facebook ended the project in April without saying too much about why. Though based on the nonstop onslaught of features the company added to its service over the course of 2010, it seems most likely they simply did not want to have to support a second version of the site.