Report: Facebook to Change Its Name Next Week to Better Reflect Company's 'Metaverse'

[MacRumors]

Facebook is reportedly planning to change its name to better reflect Mark Zuckerberg's goal of creating a "metaverse," reports The Verge, claiming the change could come as soon as next week.

From the report:

The coming name change, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about at the company's annual Connect conference on October 28th, but could unveil sooner, is meant to signal the tech giant's ambition to be known for more than social media and all the ills that entail. The rebrand would likely position the blue Facebook app as one of many products under a parent company overseeing groups like Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, and more. A spokesperson for Facebook declined to comment for this story.

Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to shift people's mindset around Facebook, no longer limiting it to just a social media company but to "being a metaverse company." The naming change also comes amid heightened scrutiny on Facebook following a whistleblower sharing several internal documents from the social media company.

A rebrand could also serve to further separate the futuristic work Zuckerberg is focused on from the intense scrutiny Facebook is currently under for the way its social platform operates today. A former employee turned whistleblower, Frances Haugen, recently leaked a trove of damning internal documents to The Wall Street Journal and testified about them before Congress.

As for what Facebook's new name and brand could be, it's not entirely clear. The Verge says that even some of Facebook's own high-ranking leadership executives are not aware of the name, but speculates it could have something to do with "Horizon."

I'm told that the new Facebook company name is a closely-guarded secret within its walls and not known widely, even among its full senior leadership. A possible name could have something to do with Horizon, the name of the still-unreleased VR version of Facebook-meets-Roblox that the company has been developing for the past few years.

Facebook's forthcoming change draws stark similarities to 2015 when Google restructured to be under "Alphabet," its holding company that includes Google itself and its subsidiaries.

Article Link: Report: Facebook to Change Its Name Next Week to Better Reflect Company's 'Metaverse'

 

[dantracht]

Lipstick on a pig.

 

[Boatboy24]

A turd by any other name is still a turd.

 

[orbital~debris]

Good choices: Dolos or Apate.

 

[Durafab]

Sounds similar to when Comcast changed its name to Xfinity because it had landed at or near the bottom of every customer satisfaction survey, including "most hated companies in America" (Forbes or Fortune, I get them mixed up) and at the top of every customer complaint list. CEO: "Comcast? Never heard of it."

 

[MLVC]

Metaverse sounds like something from a South Park episode.

 

[ksgant]

More like they realize that "Facebook" carries mostly negative reaction...so they're trying to switch names. Kind of like how Amway changed their name to "Alticor" or Comcast to "Xfinity".

 

[vseera]

They can call it - The Facebook

 

[Admiral Fart]

Am I the only one stupid enough to not know what a "metaverse" is?

 

[opeter]

Zuckerberg means in german sugar mountain. Maybe something like this?

 

[opeter]

Am I the only one stupid enough to not know what a "metaverse" is?

Something from comic books?

 

[djcerla]

Imagine living in an entire world of Zuck’s making.

 

[CasualFanboy]

Imagine living in an entire world of Zuck’s making.

I'd seriously rather just not live.

 

[currocj]

I call it fakebook

 

[one more]

Am I the only one stupid enough to not know what a "metaverse" is?

Here ?

Metaverse - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[polyphenol]

Give them a diversion from their 50.5 million pound fine in the UK re Giphy.

Facebook fined £50.5m for breaching order in Giphy takeover investigation

CMA says firm ‘deliberately’ refused to supply information showing it had complied with order to separate businesses

www.theguardian.com

 

[iGobbleoff]

How about "Just kill it because its a cancer on society-book"

 

[maxfromdenmark]

The name brings so many negative feelings about the service. It’s just a sugar coating- nothing else. However I’m surprised- Facebook is the big name in tech world, anybody imagine Apple changing the name?

 

[HughRR]

Ah typical corporate rebrand. Try and shed the old snake skin and hopefully some of the bad reputation at the same time. Still a snake though.

 

[heystu]

Well if nothing else...perhaps Tim could learn some things from Zucks about keeping internal secrets, secret? Even the M1 Pro and M1 Max names were leaked hours before Apple could unveil them, as well as that notch we're all still scratching our heads over...

 

[Mockletoy]

I feel so hipsterish. I locked my account down, turned it invisible, and stopped using it years ago, way before it was cool!

On a more serious note, I agree with John Gruber that Facebook is basically an ongoing criminal enterprise that is actively undermining our ability to maintain a civil society or even a shared sense of reality and it should be ripped out by the roots and set on fire.

They know that they are hurting people and wrecking minds and they don't care, because $$$.

 

[norwaypianoman]

Oh no. Please do not escape into some technological hindu multiversism and mysticism. That is a dead end.

 

[Mockletoy]

The name brings so many negative feelings about the service. It’s just a sugar coating- nothing else. However I’m surprised- Facebook is the big name in tech world, anybody imagine Apple changing the name?

Aren't they just going to pull a Google/Alphabet type of deal, and create a holding company with a new name, of which Facebook will just be a subsidiary, the way Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet?

Nothing will actually change, except they're hoping to distance things like Instagram and WhatsApp and their VR stuff from the toxicity of the Facebook name.

So it'll be Instagram by "NotFacebookAnymore,Really!" instead of Instagram by Facebook.

 

[Marco Klobas]

New name, same ?.

 

[jonnysods]

“Big Brother”

“Ingsoc”