Hyderabad: Social media giant Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name by next week. The company, which was launched in 2004, is planning to change its name to reflect its focus on building the metaverse, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter, as per The Verge.
The name change, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about at the company's annual Connect conference on October 28, but could unveil sooner, is meant to signal the tech giant's ambition to be known for more than social media. 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.
Facebook isn't the first well-known tech company to change its company name as its ambitions expand. In 2015, Google reorganised entirely under a holding company called Alphabet, partly to signal that it was no longer just a search engine, but a sprawling conglomerate with companies making driverless cars and health tech.
Snapchat also rebranded to Snap Inc. in 2016, the same year it started calling itself a "camera company" and debuted its first pair of Spectacles camera glasses.
A rebrand could also help Zuckerberg to shift the attention from the intense scrutiny Facebook is currently facing and focus on future ventures.
Facebook already has more than 10,000 employees building consumer hardware like AR glasses that Zuckerberg believes will eventually be as ubiquitous as smartphones. In July, he told The Verge that, over the next several years, "we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company."
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," Zuckerberg told The Verge's Casey Newton this summer.
Zuckerberg added, "And I think it's going to be the next big chapter for our company too, really doubling down in this area."
The term "metaverse" was famously coined by sci-fi novelist Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel 'Snow Crash', where it referred to a 3D virtual world inhabited by avatars of real people.
Name change closely-guarded secret
According to The Verge, 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. The name of that app was recently tweaked to Horizon Worlds shortly after Facebook demoed a version for workplace collaboration called Horizon Workrooms.
The social media giant has been steadily laying the groundwork for a greater focus on the next generation of technology. This past summer it set up a dedicated metaverse team. More recently, it announced that the head of AR and VR, Andrew Bosworth, will be promoted to chief technology officer. Just a couple of days ago, Facebook announced plans to hire 10,000 more employees to work on the metaverse in Europe.
Famous brands that have successfully rebranded their names
Here is a list of famous companies that has successfully rebranded their names
BACKRUB // GOOGLE: The search engine’s early name was “BackRub” which lasted less than a year. The present name “Google” was trademarked on September 15, 1997
RELENTLESS // AMAZON: Founder Jeff Bezos registered "Relentless" for his burgeoning business. When his friends found the word a bit sinister he floated a few other ideas. “Amazon” emerged the winner as it suggested scale—the Amazon is the largest river in the world by volume—and because it started with “A".
BRAD’S DRINK// PEPSI: In 1893, North Carolina druggist Caleb Davis Bradham invented a delicious concoction, which he called Brad’s Drink, and became an overnight sensation. In 1898, Bradham rebranded it “Pepsi-Cola” because he believed it was a health drink that helped with indigestion, also known as dyspepsia.
STARBUCKS COFFEE //STARBUCKS ): In 2011 the US giant ditched the word ‘Coffee’ from its logo thinking being it no longer did justice to its expanding menu.
ODEO // TWITTER : Twitter wasn’t a microblogging website and app during its first run, in fact it was a podcast platform called ‘Odeo’. Founders changed it into a ‘tweet’ platform after Apple iTunes took over the podcast industry
BLUE RIBBON SPORTS // NIKE: When Nike was founded in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports, the company didn’t produce shoes. When Blue Ribbon started making its own shoes in 1971, founders Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman named it “Nike” after the Greek goddess of victory.
BURBN –> INSTAGRAM:Instagram was earlier called Burbn as named by founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. The app, in general, saw failure due to its features and lack of modern ideology, allowing founders to shake things a little, including the brand name.
MATCHBOX // TINDER: The dating app was first called Matchbox to play on the many idioms about love and fire —sparks flying, flames igniting, smoldering looks. Founders turned to a thesaurus for inspiration. “Tinder” caught their attention for being a somewhat unusual word, but also for its homonym, “tender.”
PC’S LIMITED // DELL: When Michael Dell started doing business out of his dorm room at the University of Texas in 1984, he called his company "PC’s Limited." By the end of the year, the pre-med freshman had dropped out to grow his tech company instead.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Corporation// Panasonic: The Japanese electronic producer was originally founded as Matsushita Electric Industrial Corporation in 1935, and was known by this name for decades. But in 2008, the company decided to rename to Panasonic as that was the brand it was most commonly known
TOKYO TSUSHIN KOGYO// Sony: Telecommunications company Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo was first founded in 1946 as a radio repair shop. But in 1958 the company name was changed to Sony – a combination of the Latin word ‘Sonus’, which is the root of sonic and sound, and ‘Sonny’, a 1950s American term for a boy.
MASTER CHARGE// MASTERCARD: When MasterCard was first launched in 1966, it was originally known as Master Charge. But by 1979, the group decided to rename the card ‘MasterCard’ in order to give it a shorter, simpler title.
AUCTIONWEB » EBAY: Launched in 1995, eBay was initially named AuctionWeb – one of four sites housed under founder Pierre Omidyar’s umbrella company called eBay Internet. Spurred by the media referring to AuctionWeb as eBay, the company made the name change official in 1997.
FOODIEBAY –> ZOMATO: In 2010, a food directory website called ‘Foodiebay’ was launched. Two years later, it was renamed ‘Zomato’ and it is now the top runners among the foodtech unicorns. It recently even purchased UberEATS to strengthen its presence in the industry.
