Facebook is reportedly about to undertake a name change. The name change will form part of a rebranding as reported by The Verve, earlier this week. Facebook will hold their annual conference on October 28th, where it will potentially unveil the new name and rebrand. The rebrand will include the creation of a parent company that will house Facebook and its associated brands including Instagram and WhatsApp.
It is reported that Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg stated that Facebook will strive to build a metaverse. A platform of interconnected experiences for all users that will revolutionise how people are able to stay connected and interact with one another. Just like the invention of the internet or mobile phones, Zuckerberg sees this move to a metaverse as a natural technological progression.
Is Facebook dying?
For almost 20 years Facebook has been an evolving social media platform that has catered to every age group. But has the pressure from new and emerging social media platforms including TikTok and Snapchat etc become too much for Facebook in its current format?
Facebook is already losing market share with younger generations with the rise in popularity of platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat which are all far better tailored to the technological maturity and digital literacy of younger users.
Why is Facebook rebranding?
In 2015 Google formed parent company Alphabet, to cater to a wider audience and to emphasise their other non search related ventures. Whilst Google is still referred to as Google today, they are very much now known for more than just being a search engine.
In 2007 Apple Computers became just ‘Apple’ to allow for the growth of non computer related products that coincided with the release of the first iPhone. This name change allowed room for unrestricted product portfolio growth which is exactly what Zuckerberg is aiming for with a Facebook rebrand.
While Facebook is not the first tech giant to change their name, this may be the biggest shake up we’ve seen in the social media space.
So why would Facebook need to rebrand after all this time?
Is Facebook’s decision to rebrand supposed to be a distraction from bigger internal corruption? – coming off the back of internal investigations after damning documents leaked by whistle-blower
Is the rebrand an attempt to regroup, and realign their offering to continue to appeal to a growing market of users who are finding a better offering in other platforms?
Or is the rebrand an opportunity to create an almighty social ecosystem that caters to every user for every need?
We still do not know exactly what the new name will be. But it is reported that it will focus on the companies move towards being a metaverse and likely be inline with Zuckerberg’s still unreleased VR based platform Horizon Worlds.
