Facebook Inc. is ready to launch a new service called Facebook Lite, which at first looks like a simplified rip off Twitter and FriendFeed. This new service was offered to several users (offered to some by mistake!), beta testers, but is still not completely functional yet.

Facebook released the following statement about Facebook Lite:

We are currently testing a simplified alternative to Facebook.com that loads a specific set of features quickly and efficiently. Similar to the Facebook experience you get on your mobile phones, Facebook “Lite” is a fast-loading, simplified version of Facebook that enables people to make comments, accept Friend requests, write on people’s Walls, and look at photos and Status updates. We are currently testing Facebook Lite in countries where we are seeing lots of new users coming to Facebook for the first time and are looking to start off with a more simple experience.

This evening, the test was temporarily exposed to a larger set of users by mistake. We have not opened up access to lite.facebook.com to all users at this time. People who are not part of the test and are trying to access “Lite” will be directed to Facebook.com as usual.

Facebook is just trying to simplify an already pretty simple service!?! Yeah, right! It definitely sounds to me they are trying to create a new service that is actually a Twitter rip off.