Facebook is set to change its name as early as next week, according to a new report.
As anyone who’s seen The Social Network will know, Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin back in 2004, named after the face book directories often given to American university students, originally intended to help everyone get to know everyone better.
Amid its surging success across campuses in the US – it was originally for those with a harvard.edu email address – Sean Parker or Napster notoriety advised Zuckerberg to ‘drop the the’, giving birth to Facebook as we know it. Soon, that may be about to change.
The social media behemoth is planning to rebrand itself next week ‘to reflect its focus on building the metaverse’, as reported by The Verge.
It’s expected Zuckerberg will announce the name change at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28, according to a source familiar with the matter.
While Facebook as a social network will likely remain its own app without any changes, the new name will be for the ‘parent company’ overseeing Facebook’s different acquisitions over the years, such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus and others. It’s not dissimilar to Google, which operates under Alphabet, and Snapchat, which works under Snap Inc.
While Facebook hasn’t commented on the reports, it would line up with Zuckerberg’s earlier ambitions. In July, he told the publication the company would ‘effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company.’
He also said 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. And I think it’s going to be the next big chapter for our company too, really doubling down in this area.’
The new name remains unknown, said to be a ‘closely-guarded secret’ not even known to its full senior leadership. However, there have been hints it’ll be linked to Horizon, an unreleased VR online game from Facebook.
