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Brett Molina:
Hey there listeners, it’s Brett Molina. Welcome back to Talking Tech. My cohost, Mike Snider, is off today.
Is Facebook planning to change its name? The tech giant is reportedly planning to announce a rebrand, which would include changing its company name according to The Verge. What exactly does that all mean? So essentially what the report is saying is that Facebook would take its own app along with Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus and place it under this umbrella company with the new company name. It’s similar to what we saw with Google and Alphabet. Remember, at one time the company itself was Google, and then eventually what they did, was they introduced this new holding company called Alphabet, under which Google was there and also some of the other services and products they own and that they are working with. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, plans to discuss this rebrand at the company’s Connect conference on October 28th. But it’s possible that he could announce this sooner, according to the report.
In a statement emailed to USA Today, Facebook said it does not comment on rumors or speculation. This reported rebrand follows explosive testimony we heard earlier this month from a whistleblower, urging lawmakers to regulate the tech giant. According to the report, the reason for this rebrand and this potential company name change is to reflect Facebook’s continued push into the metaverse, which you have likely heard from before. It’s essentially this new platform for connecting people that is leveraging different elements, including augmented reality and virtual reality. Earlier this week, Facebook announced it was hiring 10,000 people in the European union over the next five years to help build this platform. Supporters of the metaverse, including Zuckerberg, believe this could eventually replace the internet as we know it, so forever changing how we interact with each other online.
We should likely know more details on this, and if Facebook does indeed plan to announce this company name next week, be sure to follow us on tech.usatoday.com. Stay tuned for the latest.
Listeners, let’s hear from you. Do you have any comments, questions, or show ideas? Any tech problems you want us to try to address? You can find me on Twitter @brettmolina23. Please don’t forget to subscribe and rate us or leave a review on apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, anywhere you get your podcasts. You’ve been listening to Talking Tech. We’ll be back tomorrow with another quick hit from the world of tech.