Social media giant Facebook Inc. is reportedly planning to rebrand itself with a new name next week. According to a recent report by The Verge, Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about the new changes at the company’s annual Connect conference to be held on October 28. Still, it could also be unveiled sooner than expected.
The rebranding would place Facebook’s social media app as one of many products under a parent company, overseeing groups like Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, and others. The move to rebrand also reflects Facebook’s focus on building its “Metaverse”, an online world where people can use different devices to move and communicate in a virtual environment, according to the reports.
Facebook isn’t the first well-known tech company that has changed its company name as its ambitions expand. In 2015, Google reorganized entirely under a holding company called Alphabet to signal that it was no longer just a search engine but a rising conglomerate with companies making driverless cars and health tech. Snapchat rebranded itself to Snap Inc. in 2016, the same year it started calling itself a “camera company” and debuted its first pair of Spectacles camera glasses.
Facebook has more than 10,000 employees building consumer hardware like AR glasses that Zuckerberg believes will eventually be as ubiquitous as smartphones. A rebrand could also serve to further separate the futuristic work Zuckerberg is focused on from the intense scrutiny Facebook is currently under for how its social platform operates today.
The news comes at a time when the company is facing increasing scrutiny from the U.S. government over its business practices. In addition, lawmakers from both parties have criticized the company, illustrating the rising anger in Congress with Facebook.
Facebook, in response, says that it does not comment on the supposed “rumors or speculation”.
