Mark Zuckerberg wants to be known for more than just creating the world's largest social network, and that apparently requires renaming his company.
As The Verge reports, "according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter," Facebook is expected to change its company name before the end of October. Zuckerberg is planning to discuss the name change on Oct. 28 at the Connect 2021 conference, but the official announcement could happen before then.
Facebook will always be associated with social networking, but also all the controversies surrounding it. Under a new umbrella company, Facebook would become a product and brand within a wider portfolio, which would include the many other active projects at (the company formerly known as) Facebook. Those would also be classed as products, such as Oculus, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Portal.
This is set to be Facebook's "Alphabet" moment. Google successfully transitioned from being the main company name to just one of the brands under the Alphabet company umbrella back in 2015. It looks as though Zuckerberg is about to attempt the same and hope it goes as smoothly. At the same time, it will allow for new brands to appear more easily and independently, such as the much talked about metaverse.
If you're wondering what the new Facebook company name will be, it's only known by a few key people at the social network. It's likely to be a single word that's both quite generic and all-encompassing at the same time so as to allow many brands to easily sit underneath it. I'm pretty sure the new company won't be called Zuckerberg.