Facebook is planning to change its company name next week aimed to reflect its focus on metaverse, reported to The Verge.
The upcoming name change, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to discuss at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28th but might be announced sooner, is intended to indicate the internet giant’s goal to be known for more than just social networking and all of its attendant faults. The rebranding would most likely portray the blue Facebook app as one of many products managed by a parent business that also oversees Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, and other companies. A Facebook spokesman declined to comment for this story.
Facebook currently has over 10,000 employees working on consumer hardware such as smart glasses, which Zuckerberg hopes will become as common as smartphones. In July, he told The Verge that “we will effectively transition from people seeing us as being a social media business to being a metaverse company” over the next several years.
Facebook isn’t the only well-known technology company to alter its name as its ambitions grow. Google restructured fully under the Alphabet holding company in 2015, partly to emphasize that it was no longer just a search engine, but a huge conglomerate with firms developing self-driving vehicles and healthcare technology. In 2016, Snapchat changed its name to Snap Inc., the same year it began referring to itself as a “camera company” and unveiled its first set of Spectacles camera spectacles.
