Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
Kevin M. Kruse
@KevinMKruse
It’s what all the popular non-evil companies do!

Like when Philip Morris became Altria, or Blackwater rebranded as Xe!

The Verge
@verge
Exclusive: Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name https://theverge.com/2021/10/19/22735612/facebook-change-company-name-metaverse?utm_campaign=theverge&utm_content=chorus&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter…
Image
7:23 PM · Oct 19, 2021

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/19/22735612/facebook-change-company-name-metaverse

Facebook is planning to change its company name next week to reflect its focus on building the metaverse, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.

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.”

A rebrand could also serve to further separate the futuristic work Zuckerberg is focused on from the intense scrutiny Facebook is currently under for the way its social platform operates today. A former employee turned whistleblower, Frances Haugen, recently leaked a trove of damning internal documents to The Wall Street Journal and testified about them before Congress. Antitrust regulators in the US and elsewhere are trying to break the company up, and public trust in how Facebook does business is falling.

*snip*

[FoxNewsSucks]

1. I never really did understand why it was named

"facebook" anyway.

Whatever it's called, fuck him and it and make them pay taxes.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. The original Facebook was a program that made it possible to rate female students' appearances.

[underpants]

5. It started as a like/don't like immature rating site at Harvard

He got pictures of most of the women and Harvard and guys could sit and look at their picture and give a 👍 or 👎.

He’s a billionaire now.

[USALiberal]

8. Well it seem to work out for him. nt

[Danascot]

26. We had a physical facebook in college in the late 60s

I went to a small mens college in the south in the late 60s. We had a 'sister' womens college nearby that put out a book of their students with photos and brief information. I don't recall if it was all students or just the incoming fresh(wo)men. If you had a blind date you could check her out with the facebook, or if you saw someone in the book you liked you could try to get a date with them. There weren't many copies around so they were much prized.

A "facebook" was originally something like a "yearbook" for new students -- an internally published, printed collection of photos of enrolled college students from a particular school, year, dormitory, or fraternity / sorority, allowing students to share contact information and put names to faces (and vice versa). Some schools called them "lookbooks" or "photo directories." These directories were originally printed on paper and later began to be put online.

https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/110423/the-meaning-of-the-word-facebook

[AngryOldDem]

28. Happen to be reading "Zucked" by one-time adviser Roger McNamee.

What became Facebook started out as Facemash in the early 2000s where Zuck set up a platform where Harvard students could rate the appearances of classmates. That nearly got Zuckerberg, a sophomore, expelled. He then got involved with three Harvard students who were trying to get HarvardConnection going. (Two would later file suit against Zuck, alleging he stole their idea.) Zuck used this connection to start TheFacebook on some college campuses. Then he bought the domain rights to facebook.com and the rest is history. This is all pretty much in the early to mid-2000s.

This was first marketed to colleges, and then high schools. I need to ask my daughter, who graduated high school in 2009, but I seem to recall it at her school, and the administration was not happy about it. I think she may have been on it for a very little while, and reading about it jogged my memory.

(Oh, and Zuck’s an asshole.)

[underpants]

2. My Face. FaceHub. Markslist. SomeoneYouWentToHighSchoolWith'sMemesPetPicsandDecoratingIdeas

InstaGran

[carpetbagger]

3. Skynet, assbook, Hal, covid-19-bff, it's all the same. Nt

[Miguelito Loveless]

6. GoebbelsGram?

[dweller]

7. Verge .... 🤔... is that French or something ?

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/french-english/verge




✌🏻

[Celerity]

14. The Verge is a technology site operated by Vox

https://www.theverge.com/

[lindysalsagal]

9. Bookface.

My name for it.

[JudyM]

10. Faceplant.

[BigmanPigman]

11. Fuckerberg is nervous...

I can tell by the number of TV ads that have been all over my TV for a couple of weeks. They had advertising a bit for about 3 months but now it had increased a lot on CNN and on MSNBC.

[hatrack]

12. Shitpost? Crapbook? Timesuck? Grampsbook? The Big Page Of MEEE?

Yeah, that'll fix everything!

[themaguffin]

13. Hot Or Not?

[Initech]

15. Because that's what perfectly innocent, non evil corporations do.

[Tommymac]

16. QHaven? LiesLies&MoreLies? FUIGotMine? ZuckSucks? PutinPets?

The possibilities are endless.

[JanMichael]

17. Needs to hire the genius firm that coined Inlivian and Truest

That was the Charlotte Housing Authority and BBT/ SunBank.

[QED]

18. Lipstick on a pig.

[Silent3]

19. Facey McBookface?

Yeah, OK, I guess that has been overdone.

[SKKY]

21. I see what you did there!!!

[Buns_of_Fire]

20. Merge with Twitter. Call it TwitFace. (Not Original.) nt

[jimfields33]

23. Twitter is a cesspool

Not sure why that platform gets a pass. It’s as bad or worse then Facebook.

[AngryOldDem]

29. The tolerance of Trump proved that.

This is a big reason why we are where we are today. The man was given free rein to spread his bullshit long after when he should have been permanently banned. That’s what would have happened if Joe Sixpack had posted half the shit he did.

Damage to democracy in 120 characters or less. Or whatever the limit is.

[jimfields33]

31. So true!

[eppur_se_muova]

22. Well, I've already proposed Cessbook, if honesty is what they're going for. nt

[Best_man23]

24. Same old hateful crap in a new package

How about FaceBorg.

[fescuerescue]

25. It's not really a conspiracy. Pretty typical marketing progression

Generally it's a bad idea for your product to have the same name as your company. Occasionally a company will grow so wicked fast based on one product that it happens anyway.

Google did the same thing not long ago. Google is now known as Alphabet to distinguish between itself and it's largest product - google.

Othertimes the company will just start naming it's product differently.

There was a time when was drove a "Chevrolet" or a "Ford". Nowadays we drive Malibu's made by Chevrolet. Or F150s made by Ford.

[The Revolution]

27. WTF is a metaverse company?

“we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company.”

I see them as primarily a cancerous company.

[AngryOldDem]

30. This is what people don't understand.

Yes, it’s great for keeping up with the kids, grandkids, and your BFF from college. But it’s insidiously evil — its business strategy, algorithms, and ethics are fucked. That’s what has to change. Individual users can’t help that, but Zuck and his minions can.