Remember New Coke? Remember when Comcast changed its name to Xfinity, because it has the highest negative ratings from cable customers? Most people still think it's named Comcast. Oh, and how many people who aren't business reporters call Google "Alphabet"?
Mired in one scandal after another and facing anti-monopoly investigations, Facebook plans to change its name next week to reflect its focus on building what Mark Zuckerberg calls "the metaverse," according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter. Via The Verge:
The coming name change, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about at the company’s annual Connect conference on October 28th, but could unveil sooner, is meant to signal the tech giant’s ambition to be known for more than social media and all the ills that entail. 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. A spokesperson for Facebook declined to comment for this story.
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.”
Here's just the latest scandal:
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