This social network just launched a lighter, faster app to your phone

Twitter announced this on their blog on Thursday and the reasons they went liter is pretty obvious:

"...slow mobile networks, expensive data plans, or lack of storage on mobile devices. While smartphone adoption grew to 3.8 billion connections by the end of 2016, 45% of mobile connections are still on slower 2G networks."

Take Nigeria for example, half the time we talk about Internet service providers, we're complaining about how slow the Internet is.

Another problem with apps is storage. The mass of smartphones used in Africa have low storage space to accommodate apps. So there's a tendency for people to only use apps that are very essential for them.

Don't worry, Twitter's got you.

Now, Twitter didn't design a new mobile app as you know it (the current app is almost 90mb on Android by the way). They designed it into their web. What this means is that when you open mobile.twitter.com, you're in fact opening the app, on your browser. How cool is that?

HOW DID THEY DO THAT?

It's this technology called Progressive Web Apps. It's type of innovation where it feels like you're on your app, but infact you're on a browser.

This is what the actual heavyweight app looks like;

But this is what it looks like on your browser.

Just a few differences, as the app itself is stripped down to the most essential. This is the power of Progressive Web Apps.

Why is Twitter doing this now?

It's the Scramble for Africa, and Twitter is not alone. Remember we said Facebook is pressing buttons to increase their 170 million membership in Africa. We also said Google is investing in making data cheaper in Africa. If data is cheaper, more people come online. Everybody wins.

Twitter made a small video to help you figure this out.

Now, get tweeting.