Social media giant Facebook is planning to rename the company next week to reflect its focus on the multiverse, according to a report. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning to talk about the name change at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28th. However the company could unveil the name sooner than that as the tech giant aims to be known for more than social media.
According to a report in The Verge, the rebranding would position the blue Facebook app as one of the many products under the parent company that oversees other apps like Instagram, WhatsApp and Occulus.
A person in the know had earlier told the tech news site that the company wants to effectively transition from being seen as a social media company to a metaverse company. The tech giant has more than 10,000 employees building consumer hardware like AR glasses that Zuckerberg thinks will become ubiquitous as smartphones.
The report stated that a rebranding would separate Facebook social media app from the futuristic work that Zuckerberg is planning on, amid strict scrutiny. This comes as whistleblower ex-employee Frances Haugen leaked a bunch of damning internal documents to The Wall Street Journal and testified regarding the same before the Congress.
The report stated that the new Facebook company name is a closely-guarded secret and is not known widely even among its full senior leadership. The company has been steadily laying the blueprint for the next generation of technology -- metaverse -- and has already set up a dedicated team. It also announced that it will hire 10,000 more employees to work on the metaverse in Europe.
Facebook is not the first giant to change its name. In 2015, Google reorganised under the holding company Alphabet, and in 2016 Snapchat rebranded to Snap Inc.
Also read: Facebook mulls hiring 10,000 employees in EU to build 'metaverse' Also read: Facebook ‘metaverse’ is Mark Zuckerberg’s next big bet