The social media giant made an announcement last week during its first “Facebook Fuel For India” virtual event, the photo-sharing app also introduced the second edition of the “Born on Instagram” creator program.
“India is such an important country for us and has been a testing ground for innovation, thanks to the natural creativity and entrepreneurial spirit we see here,” said Vishal Shah, Vice President of Product, Instagram at Facebook.
“With the test of Instagram Lite and the next edition of ‘Born on Instagram’, we’re aiming to democratise expression and creativity for a greater number of people in India. We’re also hoping to gain valuable insights before a global rollout of Instagram Lite.”
This is wont be the first time Instagram is testing a feature in India before a global rollout. The platform displayed a series of new features in the past few months that have either made an entry in India or India has been one of the first countries to test it. This includes Reels, the Reels tab and Live Rooms
The size of the new version of Instagram Lite is less than 2MB and is built to be capable enough to deliver an Instagram experience that remains speedy and dependable and efficient for more people.
The primary objective of Instagram Lite is to target users who face slow Internet connectivity issues as a result of low memory phones and heavy-sized apps.
The app is made for Android and this new version has improved speed, performance, and responsiveness, Instagram said.
The experience is similar to the core Instagram app experience, though there are some features that are not currently supported such as Reels, Shopping and IGTV.
The app will be available in native languages, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu, the company said.
It also announced the second version of “Born on Instagram”, to equip the next generation of content creators with best practices to use the platform and enable them with collaboration and mentorship opportunities.
The programme was first announced in November 2019 to discover, grow and showcase creators from all across the country.
Now in the next edition, the programme has been attuned to incorporate the new features on Instagram, especially Reels.