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.

We now have our own Fan Page for Bumpshack on Facebook that you can join. On it, you can post comments, submit links of stories you find interesting, and interact with myself and the Bumpshack staff about celebrity gossip and current events.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter as well @bayou for additional thoughts, rants, etc. or if you just want the feeds and links to Bump stories then follow @bumpshack.

Melinda Messenger opened her own lingerie store last week in England, but that is not enough to keep her from being our ‘Worst Dressed Celeb of the Day’.  Messenger is a TV presenter/host over in Great Britain.

More Worst Dressed Celebs of the Day

[image: WENN]

Aaron Sorkin, who created popular shows like The West Wing, Studio 60, Charlie Wilson’s War, Sports Night and several others, is creating a movie about social networking site Facebook.

Sorkin, who also scripted recent Tom Hanks film Charlie Wilson’s War along with the Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson feature A Few Good Men, announced his latest movie project to users of the social networking site by launching a group page on Facebook called Aaron Sorkin & The Facebook Movie. Sorkin has also set up his own private profile page on Facebook.

“I’ve just agreed to write a movie for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about how Facebook was invented,” Sorkin wrote in his introduction on the group page.

“I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I’ve started this page.”

The film is likely to look at how, following its creation in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg in his university dorm, Facebook quickly became an internet, business and social phenomenon with more than 100 million users worldwide.

Now, now, now! A movie about a social networking site? Will you be able to add your friends and high school acquaintances as you watch it? If so it might work. Otherwise I think works like this are called documentaries.

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Game maker Hasbro has shut down Scrabulous on Facebook in the U.S. and Canada after filing suit against the popular Facebook game in New York court.  Mattel is leading the way with numerous other suits in counties outside the U.S./Canada.

Hasbro scored big in its legal match against the popular but unauthorized version of Scrabble that’s played online by millions of Facebook members. The creators of Scrabulous today shut down the game to players in the United States and Canada, where Hasbro owns the rights to Scrabble.

Mattel, which owns the rights to Scrabble elsewhere, has filed suit in India, where the two brothers behind Scrabulous, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, reside.

Good luck to Rajat and Jayant in pursing this case.  Hasbro and Mattel would still be clueless about Facebook and expanding Scrabble to Facebook if it weren’t for the Agarwalla brothers.

The Bumpwife was just telling me days ago about how her L.A. doctor friends are addicted to this game on Facebook.  Well, I didn’t get a chance to try it out. Thanks Hasbro!  And NO I won’t be playing your version for sure!