Mark Zuckerberg announced the change of Facebook's name to Meta. Although the news about Facebook's new name only spread last week, apparently Zuckerberg has been planning this rebranding for a long time.
In an interview with The Verge, Zuckerberg said he planned to change the company's name since acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp, in 2012 and 2014. But it was only this year that he realized that now was the right time to change the name of Facebook.
"I think there's a lot of confusion and awkwardness about a company brand being used to brand a social media app," Zuckerberg said.
"I think it's really helpful for people to have a relationship with a different company than a relationship with one particular product, which can replace all of that."
The process of renaming Facebook to Meta was started directly by Zuckerberg six months ago. The project is so secretive that the Facebook employees involved had to sign a separate non-disclosure agreement.
The name Meta itself was chosen to symbolize the company's vision that will focus on building a metaverse world. Previously, Zuckerberg had said that the metaverse would be the future of the internet and its companies.
The change of Facebook's name to Meta was also announced when the company was hit by a crisis due to the leaking of internal company documents provided to a number of media by a former employee named Frances Heugen.
For many critics, this name change seems to be done to distance the company name and Zuckerberg from the Facebook name, and distract the public from the company's problems. But according to Zuckerberg, the series of bad news that hit Facebook did not affect the announcement of their new name.
"Although I think people will relate to it, I think it's ridiculous. In fact, I don't think this is the right environment if you want to introduce a new brand," Zuckerberg said.