As some people ask: What's really in a name? Facebook has proposed a rebrand- in the future- and some truly exciting plans. Could this be Facebook's action to save its dented reputation after the recent leaks and failures? Could it be that Facebook actually has a bigger plan for the future- beyond 2022? As noted, Facebook recently had to deal with one of its biggest ever scandals in decades. There was the intriguing matter of the shocking leak of internal documents. So, the hugely popular social media giant recently announced it would change its name. The Verge first reported the impending name change in October 2021. According to the publication, the significant name change was set to be announced at Facebook's upcoming annual conference just a few days on.
Facebook, whose value runs into almost one trillion dollars, also owns Whatsapp, Instagram, and several other high-tech products, including Oculus. The company's chairman and co-founder, Mark Zuckerberg, also said that Facebook would effectively transition from being seen primarily as a social media enterprise to a metaverse company in a few years. According to a new report by Bloomberg, Facebook's rebranding efforts started much earlier in the year. It happened when Zuckerberg began pushing the idea of the company transitioning towards a metaverse. Zuckerberg pushed the idea that users would soon be able to transport themselves- hovering between different experiences and interacting with each other through virtual reality.
So, what's the essential quality of the metaverse experience? According to Zuckerberg, it's the feeling that you're actually there with the other person, in a different place. The executive said this while outlining his concept during a company earnings meeting conference. Pu simply, a metaverse may be understood as the imagination of a virtual world, a world where users can acquire different identities while interacting with the digital world's other aspects.
According to Facebook, the metaverse is actually a virtual space where users would be able to hang out with friends, play, work, create, shop, learn and do endless things. It doesn't simply mean that users have to spend more time online. It's all about having a more meaningful, quality time online. A recent Reuters report indicated that Facebook has launched plans to hire more than 10,000 new employees in the EU in the next five years. This is how the company plans to facilitate the building of the new metaverse project. At the same time, Facebook plans to invest $50 million in building the envisioned virtual world. Facebook is not the first major global enterprise to rebrand or change its name. It's just like Google did in 2015 when it changed the parent holding company's name to Alphabet. But Facebook's planned rebrand came at a rather peculiar time.
Analysts note that Facebook has been under scrutiny for some time now. There were damaging allegations that the company helped to spread misinformation. There were claims Facebook had become a platform for hate speech elections in various countries worldwide. Much more recently, Facebook notably came under fire from the US Congress after a former employee, France Haugen, revealed some damaging internal documents touching on the company's knowledge on the way its platforms and products negatively influence and harm millions of users.
According to a survey by The Verge, 34% of the respondents questioned said they had a negative opinion about the world-dominating social media giant. Interestingly, only 29% of the respondents in this survey held a positive view of Facebook. According to Anaezi Modu, the CEO of Rebrand, who was interviewed by Wired: "Unless Facebook really plans to address some of the many damaging issues, it'll be pointless merely acting to save its name. Indeed, this may only worsen matters," he claimed.
Millions of people on social media reacted with much speculation after learning about Facebook's planned name change. Indeed, there was a flood of speculation. Some said the company would be simply known as FB. Others claimed the company would return to its founding name, "The Facebook." But media reports pointed out the new name must necessarily align with the company's metaverse ideals. The Verge even speculated Facebook would become Horizon (a virtual reality platform Facebook is developing). A Bloomberg report speculated on the name "Meta." The Bloomberg report stated that the domain name meta.com would redirect to meta.org (the name of a unique research tool recently developed under the auspices of the Zuckerberg-Chan initiative.