Will Horizon be the new name of Facebook?

By Sabin Iqbal, Group Editor, TECHx Media

The IT giant is reportedly transiting into a ‘metaverse’ company

Facebook is poised for a name-change.

It is reported that the social media giant Facebook Inc is planning a rebranding with a new name. The Verge reported that Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, would be making the announcement at the company’s Connect conference on Oct. 28. But some say that the news of the name change could emerge even before that.

Facebook has not responded to the report yet.

There are a couple of questions that crop up. One, why? And, two, what’s the new name?

One of the reasons for Facebook’s alleged name-change is the increasing public and Congressional criticism about the way Facebook is doing its business. A former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, has recently turned whistleblower and leaked confidential documents to The Wall Street Journal which reveal the ‘business behind the face’ of Facebook. She has also confessed about them before Congress. Antitrust regulators in the US are breathing down the company’s neck, and public trust is diminishing.

Another reason is that Facebook is transitioning into a ‘metaverse’ company, and Facebook app will become one of the many verticals like WhatsApp, Oculus, Instagram, etc., under a parent company.

It is not unusual for large IT companies to undergo a name-change to bring many vertices under one umbrella. Google came under Alphabet, and Snapchat under Snap Inc.

Zuckerberg himself has said that the future of Facebook is ‘metaverse’ concept, where users will live and work in a virtual world. Earlier this year, he had told The Verge that metaverse is going to be a big focus of the company. “I think that this is just going to be a big part of the next chapter for the way that the internet evolves after the mobile internet. And I think it’s going to be the next big chapter for our company too,” Zuckerberg told The Verge’s Casey Newton.

In fact, Facebook has been focusing more on the next-gen technology of metaverse. A few days ago, it announced its plan to hire 10,000 staff to work on the met-averse in Europe.

The term ‘metaverse’ was coined by sci-fi novelist Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel, Snow Crash, to describe a virtual word people escape to from a dystopian, real world.

Now, what could be the name of the new parent company of Facebook? There has not been any confirmation but the air is rife with rumors and whispers.

It is a closely-guarded secret and even the top management of Facebook is not privy to it. But there are reports that it could be something to do with ‘Horizon’, the name of the yet-to-release VR version of Facebook that the company has been working on for the last few years. Recently the name of the app has been changed to ‘Horizon Worlds’, and Facebook has also demoed a version for workplace collaboration called ‘Horizon Workrooms’.

Facebook’s reported decision to come under a new name could be a wise thing to do since it is facing some ‘dystopian’ issues in the real world, and it could be worth transcending ‘horizons’ to the metaverse.