We all know Facebook is continuously evolving, and just recently the social networking behemoth made some announcements that will likely make its popularity even larger, partly by making things smaller. On Thursday Facebook launched Facebook Lite, which is basically a scaled down version of the current Facebook site. Existing users can log onto Facebook Lite and it even uses the same cookies to recognize you if you are already logged in. All you friends are there and you can post messages, but it’s just got a little fewer “pieces of flare” about it.

The idea for Facebook Lite is to make a slimmer version of Facebook, not too unlike Twitter, that more people could use in places that have limited access to bandwidth, so the pages are not so “heavy” to load. So far the site is ironically only available in the U.S. and India, but I suppose they have to test it out somewhere. Chances are it will be rolling into some more obscure areas of the world soon.

Nokia World 2009 is underway in Stuttgart, where they’ve officially unveiled the N97 mini. The Nokia Mini is geared toward social networking and the younger generation, those hip kids who can’t quite handle the N97. What we have here is a 3.2 inch N-series with a comfortable QWERTY keyboard for $640.

Nokia is calling it the world’s “slimmest travel companion” due to built-in Lonely Planet guidebooks. The phone should be available for free on contract in “many, many markets.” The first shipments start in October.

Samsung’s “Corby” is the company’s first full touch phone aimed squarely at younger users, with a focus on making social networking easier. It has support for social networks like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Samsung has prettied these handsets up in colors like Jamaican Yellow, Cupid Pink, Minimal White and Festival Orange to make them more appealing to youngsters, without the whole “you kids get off my lawn” vibe.

Some other features include a 2.8 inch QVGA screen with support for EDGE and Quad-band networks. The Samsung Corby will be available in Europe this month for about 150 Euros (or $215).

You don’t own a digiframe yet? You’ve probably been waiting for some better features with some social networking built in. You’re in luck. This one may look like all the rest, but it supports FrameChannel accounts, so you’ll never be far from your personalized weather, traffic, sports scores, music, and video.

It’s also got Flickr, Photobucket, and Facebook integration. Isn’t that just what you want in a fancy picture frame? This one is available in August, with the 8-inch frame in white (DMF82XWU) or black (DMF82XKU) for just $179.99.

How attached are you to the messages you get from social networking sites? Enough so you would pony up around $100 for a dedicated wireless text messaging device? The developers of the new TextCu.be hope so, as they plan to launch such a product this July.

The TextCu.be is primarily designed to work with a dedicated social network tied to the device’s launch. There will be no monthly fees associated with the service and it is said full management and privacy controls will be provided. You’ll also be able to integrate into your other social networking profiles a TextCu.be widget which lets you receive similar messages from friends.

Only on Thursday Google had made the announcement about its new OpenSocial platform and already news in cropping up of developers taking advantage of this open, common platform. In their announcement we knew there were going to be a number of social networking sites that were already onboard with the new API’s, including Salesforce.com, Hi5, LinkedIn, Ning, and of course Google’s Orkut but we weren’t expecting the giants like MySpace or Facebook.

As it turned out MySpace actually is going to take advantage of OpenSocial along with Bebo, another large social networking site. The one clearly left out of this picture was Facebook, in which this launch echoed a mighty blow to with many of the more significant social network sites in the world taking part in a common platform without them. According to Wired, Facebook representatives maintained that they had “still not been briefed on OpenSocial” despite Google stating that they had, and Facebook employees showing up at Google’s developer sandbox event.

Tonight Google is planning to unveil OpenSocial, a new set of API’s which make up a common programming platform specifically built to use on popular social networking sites. The development platform will allow application developers to create third party programs to run on these sites without them having to learn a new platform and rewrite their components for each one.

Not only will the new common platform work on Google’s own Orkut, but has also already seen support from as many as a dozen other popular companies and social networking sites including Oracle, Salesforce.com, Hi5, iLike, LinkedIn, Slide, Ning, Friendster and Plaxo. Flixster, iLike and RockYou already have developers in the onboard. The very popular Facebook, who recently accepted a bid to go with Microsoft over Google and who “opened up” its own platform for 3rd party widgets, is not in the list of sites supporting the API’s, and neither is MySpace.

Suppose you own a company that both Microsoft and Google want to own a part of. Who do you choose to do a deal with? Do you base your decision on which company you think will be the stronger in the future or just on who’s offering the most cash? This is the present dilemma that Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg is facing right now. Both Google and Microsoft are neck-and-neck with striking a deal that would see either one of the two online titans getting a 5-to-10 percent ownership with Facebook. The deal is expected to close sometime today or tomorrow.

The potential deal is likely to be huge for whomever gets it. Both Microsoft and Google are set up to capitalize on serving advertising to Facebook’s 34 million members. No one from either of the three companies is offering to comment about the deal but if the “The New York Times” is reporting that it exists, take it to the bank.