82% of social network users in South Africa use Facebook, making it the most popular social service locally (Friendship 2.0 survey, 2009). How are all these accessing this mega social site? Many smartphones and slightly advanced feature phones have Facebook apps and/or widgets but the mobile browser remains quite popular with many.

For touchscreen phones, Facebook has what they call a Touch Site at http://touch.facebook.com and it's as feature-rich as any Facebook app I've ever used.

Not only is it pretty, it's also quite easy to use and, as you may have judged from the name, is touch screen finger-friendly, moreso than the dedicated mobile site or even the full site via a mobile browser.

Below are screenshots of my experience on Facebook's Touch Site.

(I've blurred certain elements in the images to protect the privacy of my Facebook "friends").

Full Site vs. Mobile Site vs. Touch Site

Home page

Full site - http://facebook.com (click on "Full site" right at the bottom of this page)

Browsing requires quite a bit of zooming in and out but is has the most features available, even ads are viewable in this mode.

Mobile site - http://m.facebook.com.

This is has a typical mobi site vibe (lots of text, links and simple layout that probably works with most phones) and is the most lenient on data usage of the three. I had to adjust the zooming on it as the text was just really small.

Touch Site - http://touch.facebook.com.

Created for touch screens, the Touch Site is quite a pleasure to use on the I8910 HD. Navigation is easy and most menu tabs are big enough to prevent accidental clicks (I found the Notifications icon too small, however).

Login page

Mobile Site

The mobi site login page has quite a few things on it, viz. request password, signup, unsecured login option, language choice and link to a Facebook bookmark specifically for one's phone (if supported).

Touch Site

This login page has a much simpler and cleaner layout. It also has fewer options than the mobi site.

Messaging

Inbox

Messages are listed as per usual but with a one-line message preview - nice!

Composing messages is as you'd expect but I found it especially useful to have an auto-completion feature in the "to:" field.

Fan page updates

Unlike on the mobile site, one can access updates from fan pages.

Other

Phonebook

Phone numbers in the phonebook appear as hypertext so a click results in a confirmation message on whether you'd like to call that number. This is very handy.

Events

This is just a list of events to which one has been invited with the option to RSVP.

Notifications

A list of the latest notifications. Nothing fancy here.

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Interesting Facts on Facebook Mobile

There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.

- http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

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Have you used Facebook Touch Site on your touchscreen phone?