Is Facebook about to change its name?

Virgin Radio

20 Oct 2021, 14:21

The company is reportedly planning to rebrand. But why? And when?

It is believed that founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is keen to move Facebook’s focus towards building the metaverse.

If you don’t know what the metaverse is then, don’t worry, you are most certainly not alone, as its concept still isn’t widely understood.

Essentially, the metaverse is a future iteration of the internet, involving shared 3D online spaces, where people interact using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology. Or something like that! 

Facebook has already introduced Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses, and VR-headsets. Earlier this year, Zuckerberg said that, over the next few years, Facebook would transition from a social media company to “a metaverse company”.

The company has already revealed plans to hire 10,000 new staff in Europe to build the metaverse. A few months ago, Facebook launched Horizon Workrooms, which is a virtual reality meeting service where people use headsets to meet in an online space, just as though they were in a real office.

According to The Verge, the announcement regarding the reported rebrand could be made as soon as next week during Facebook’s Connect conference, on October 28th, and that it could help Facebook separate its social networking platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, from its metaverse work.

The news of a rebrand comes in the aftermath of a series of reports and whistleblower complaints about how the Facebook website handles user safety.

If Facebook’s name-change does indeed go ahead, it wouldn’t be the first time that a huge tech company altered its name to better represent its focus. Back in 2015 Google created a new parent company, Alphabet, to highlight that it was no longer just a search engine, but that it also worked on other technology, such as smartphones and driverless cars.