Maybe the company thinks that changing the name would make people forget about their controversial past?
It appears as if Facebook has finally decided to ditch the name “Facebook” and is planning to change it next week to focus on building the “metaverse”, as acclaimed by a very close source to the matter. CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about the name change topic at the company’s annual Connect conference on 28th October, a week from now or even sooner.
This rebranding strategy would likely position the original blue Facebook app as one of the many products under a parent company overseeing groups like Instagram, Whatsapp. Oculus and more. This seems like a transition step to portray Facebook as more than just a social media app. Back in July, Zuckerberg told The Verge, that over the next several years, “we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company.” With over 10,000 employees working on consumer hardware like AR glasses, Zuckerberg believes they will become as common as smartphones in the near future.
This rebranding plan comes at a very crucial time as Facebook is in deep water after the whistleblower interview with Frances Haugen who leaked important internal documents and testified before Congress against Facebook’s policies. By changing the name of the parent company, maybe Zuckerberg wants to achieve a separate platform for introducing his future gadgets.
Facebook isn’t the first big tech company to change its name. in 2015, Google reorganized under a holding company called Alphabet, to make it clear to the world that it was no longer just a search engine but comprised of a group of companies making driverless cars and health tech as well. Similarly, Snapchat re-debuted as Snap Inc. in 2016 after turning into a “camera company” and releasing its first pair of Spectacles camera glasses.
The metaverse is “going to be a big focus, and I think that this is just going to be a big part of the next chapter for the way that the internet evolves after the mobile internet,” said Zuckerberg. If you were renaming Facebook, what would it be called?
