Yesterday, The Verge reported that Facebook is preparing to change its name to better reflect the ambitions of "metaverse". Now another post claims that the name has not been decided yet, although the company plans to reveal it very soon.
Journalist Casey Newton he says that he confirmed with his sources that the name change will come either next Monday, or during Facebook's earnings call, or at the conference Oculus Connect, scheduled for next Thursday.
Despite the urgency of the schedule (a week at most), Newton sources say CEO Mark Zuckerberg has not yet reached a final name.
The company has been discussing this move for at least two months, while former Facebook CMO Antonio Lucio pushed to change the company's name three years ago to separate the products from the company.
In the meantime, a lot has happened. Although Facebook continued to make a lot of money, there have been many concerns about Facebook's role in the 2016 US presidential election, its privacy and security practices, and its overall impact on our social network. All of this prompted regulators to impose fines, and even suggested splitting it into many smaller companies. Maybe it's time to turn the page with a new name.
Another good reason for the name change is that Facebook is thinking much more broadly than social networks. Zuckerberg spoke openly about the metaverse, a somewhat vague term that Facebook associates with it virtual and augmented reality. Zuckerberg mentioned that it is the future of the company.
A good case at the moment is the name "Meta". It is directly related to the metaverse vision and it seems that Facebook has already bought the domain "meta.com".
We will find out soon enough.
