Tuesday, June 3, 2025
The Lagos Today
  • Login
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
The Lagos Today
No Result
View All Result
Home Tech

Facebook Considering New Name After 17 Years, Sources Reveal

by Eucharia Egwuma
October 22, 2021
in Tech
Reading Time: 2 mins read
0
0
Facebook Considering New Name After 17 Years, Sources Reveal
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Social media platform, Facebook may rebrand and change to a new group name that focuses on the metaverse by next week.

Reuters quoted The Verge, which cited a source with direct knowledge of the matter.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been talking up the metaverse, a digital world where people can move between different devices and communicate in a virtual environment, since July, and the group has invested heavily in virtual reality and augmented reality, developing hardware such as its Oculus VR headsets and working on AR glasses and wristband technologies.

The move is expected to position the flagship app as one of many products under a parent company overseeing brands such as Instagram and WhatsApp, according to the report. Google adopted such a structure when it reorganised into a holding company called Alphabet in 2015.

Facebook, however, according to Reuters said it does not comment on “rumour or speculation.”

The report said if the news is true, the rebranding would make sense as the core Facebook business becomes less important to the group and it seeks to revamp an image tarnished by regulatory and legal scrutiny of how it handles user safety and hate speech, analysts said.

“It reflects the broadening out of the Facebook business. And then, secondly, I do think that Facebook’s brand is probably not the greatest given all of the events of the last three years or so,” Internet Analyst James Cordwell at Atlantic Equities said.

Facebook is under wide-ranging scrutiny from global lawmakers and regulators over its content moderation practices and harms linked to its platforms, with internal documents leaked by a whistleblower forming the basis for a U.S. Senate hearing last week.

“Having a different parent brand will guard against having this negative association transferred into a new brand, or other brands that are in the portfolio,” said Shankha Basu, associate professor of marketing at University of Leeds.

Last month, Facebook appointed Andrew Bosworth, who heads up the social media company’s augmented reality and virtual reality efforts, including products like its Oculus Quest VR headset, as chief technology officer.

Metaverse, first coined in a dystopian novel three decades earlier, is popular in Silicon Valley and has been referenced by other tech firms such as Microsoft. The popular children’s game Roblox (RBLX.N) describes itself as a metaverse company. Epic Games’ Fortnite is also considered to be part of the metaverse.

The Verge said Zuckerberg plans to talk about the name change at the company’s yearly Connect conference on Oct. 28, but it could be unveiled sooner.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • X

Like this:

Like Loading...
Tags: FacebookMark ZuckerbergSocial media
Previous Post

AfDB, MTN Donate $500,000 To Boosting Financial Inclusion Among Women in Northern Nigeria

Next Post

Moscow is going back into lockdown as Covid-19 deaths multiply in Russia

Eucharia Egwuma

Eucharia Egwuma

Related Posts

NjiaPay: South African Fintech Startup Reshaping Payment Solutions for African Businesses

NjiaPay: South African Fintech Startup Reshaping Payment Solutions for African Businesses

by Iyanu Ale
May 5, 2025
0

In a move poised to transform how African businesses manage financial transactions, South African fintech startup NjiaPay is streamlining payments...

Ghana’s Kofa Secures $8.1M Pre-Series A Funding to Drive Clean Energy Access Across Urban Africa

Ghana’s Kofa Secures $8.1M Pre-Series A Funding to Drive Clean Energy Access Across Urban Africa

by Iyanu Ale
May 2, 2025
0

Ghanaian energy tech startup Kofa has successfully raised $8.1 million in a pre-Series A funding round to scale its AI-powered...

Next Post
Moscow

Moscow is going back into lockdown as Covid-19 deaths multiply in Russia

Please login to join discussion

Recommended

Italian police seize over $1 billion of ‘ISIS-made’ Captagon amphetamines

Italian police seize over $1 billion of ‘ISIS-made’ Captagon amphetamines

5 years ago
Controversy trails air raid targeting ‘repentant’ terrorist, Bello Turji

Controversy trails air raid targeting ‘repentant’ terrorist, Bello Turji

3 years ago

Popular News

    Connect with us

    Tags

    #EndSARS 2023 Elections 2023 polls 2023 Presidency ACCIDENT Africa All progressives Congress APC Asiwaju Bola Tinubu Babajide Sanwo-Olu CBN Central Bank of NIgeria Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Coronavirus pandemic Covid-19 Covid-19 in Lagos Covid-19 in Nigeria Covid-19 Vaccine Cryptocurrency Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC Federal Government Federal Government of Nigeria Fraud Gov. Sanwo-Olu House of Representatives Lagos-Ibadan expressway Lagos state Lagos State Government Lagos State House of Assembly Lagos State Police command Muhammadu Buhari Murder Naira NDLEA Nigeria Nigeria Customs Service Nigerian Economy Nigeria Police Force Rape Strike action TECH UK United Kingdom US

    News

    Opinion

    © 2020 The Lagos Today - Nkali.

    Welcome Back!

    Login to your account below

    Forgotten Password?

    Retrieve your password

    Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

    Log In
    No Result
    View All Result

    © 2020 The Lagos Today - Nkali.

    %d