According to the latest reports, Facebook plans to change its company name. The new name, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to discuss at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28th but may reveal sooner, is intended to signal the tech giant’s ambition to be recognized for more than social media and all of its ills.
It is alleged that the new Facebook company name is a secret within the company’s walls and is not widely known, even among its full senior leadership. Horizon, the name of the still-unreleased VR version of Facebook-meets-Roblox that the company has been developing for the past few years, could be a possible name. The app’s name was recently changed to Horizon Worlds, shortly after Facebook demonstrated Horizon Workrooms, a version for workplace collaboration.
Facebook intends to rebrand itself with a new name. The tech giant wishes to be remembered for creating the metaverse. And in the process, the Facebook app would most likely be positioned as one of many products under a parent company’s umbrella that includes groups such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, and others.
It is, however, extremely rare for a brand such as Facebook to change its name. Facebook is a well-known brand; it is one of the most popular social media platforms. It already has more than 10,000 people working in the development of consumer hardware such as augmented reality glasses, which according to Zuckerberg, will become as commonplace as smartphones one day.
In one of the interviews in July this year, he said, “we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company” over the next several years. Experts believe that this step of rebranding could also serve to further distance Zuckerberg’s futuristic work from the intense scrutiny Facebook is currently facing for the way its social platform operates today.
Facebook isn’t the first technology company to rename itself as part of a rebranding endeavor. In 2015, Google reorganized entirely under the Alphabet holding company, partly to signal that it was no longer just a search engine but a sprawling conglomerate with companies producing driverless cars and health technology. Snapchat rebranded to Snap Inc. in 2016, the same year it started referring to itself as a
“camera company” and released its first pair of Spectacles camera glasses.
According to the report, the rebranding will also reflect Facebook’s focus on developing the metaverse, an online world where people can use various devices to move and communicate in a virtual environment.
Facebook has made substantial investments in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), with the goal of connecting its nearly three billion users via a variety of devices and apps. The company has been unwaveringly laying the groundwork for a greater emphasis on next-generation technology. It has already established a dedicated metaverse team and recently announced that Andrew Bosworth, the head of AR and VR, will be promoted to chief technology officer. Facebook is even planning to hire 10,000 more people in Europe to work on the metaverse.
In a statement, Zuckerberg said that 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.”
Further, he said, “And I believe it will be the next big chapter for our company as well, really doubling down in this area.”
Whatever the new name, Facebook has helped many people unite from around the world, and we know it will continue to do so in the future.
Let us all enjoy it with the same name, “FACEBOOK,” until the new name is revealed. Cheers!
