Facebook has announced the launch of a new mobile site (0.facebook.com) that includes all the key features of Facebook but that is optimised for speed on mobile devices.

In addition, Facebook has made agreements with selected mobile operators so that the site will be available to browse for free in certain regions.

The new site aims to resolve two of the main challenges that consumers face while browsing Facebook on their mobile devices:

• the experience can be slow, and
• the cost of data plans confusing in certain markets.

To make the site more speedy while still maintaining all the standard features associated with Facebook, the photos have simply been moved. In other words, rather than having the photos included in consumers newsfeed – which would require extra time to load – the newsfeed loads with the pictures removed. If the subscriber wants to see the photos, they are simply on one click away.

Here is what 0.facebook.com looks like:

In addition, Facebook has made arrangements with a number of mobile operators to make basic browsing of the site free for consumers. In other words, the data that they use while looking at 0.facebook.com will be “zero-rated”. However, the consumer will have to pay data charges if they choose to click to view any of the photos.

The 0.facebook.com site will be available with the following mobile operators:

What has not yet been disclosed is the business model behind this new service. In general, for a zero-rated service the service provider has to pay, in this case Facebook. Perhaps Facebook will insert ads at some point to generate revenue.

“We have designed 0.facebook.com to help solve these two barriers [Speed and cost] and we hope that even more people will discover the mobile Internet with Facebook as a result.” said Sid Murlidhar a Program Manager for Facebook Mobile.