Could Facebook Rebrand as “Meta?”

Late last night, The Verge published an article reporting that “Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name,” and it could be done in similar fashion to how Google created a parent brand in Alphabet. The article stated that the rebrand is being undertaken “to reflect its focus on building the metaverse.”

Exclusive: Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name https://t.co/0NuPhWQsc5 pic.twitter.com/htkzkRBCGI

— The Verge (@verge) October 20, 2021

I speculated / guessed that perhaps Facebook was the private buyer behind the $149,000 purchase of the Meta.so domain name and if this is the case, perhaps the company could rebrand as Metaso or something along those lines.

Someone on Twitter called to my attention that Facebook (or a related entity) already appears to own the Meta.com domain name. At the moment, Meta.com forwards to Meta.org, the website for Meta, “a biomedical research discovery tool that analyzes & connects millions of scientific outputs to give you a comprehensive view into science.” Meta is a project from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, an organization founded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

While a rebrand of Facebook to Meta would likely be confusing to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative project of the same name, there may be no better metaverse brand and matching domain name than Meta.com. It is short, simply to spell, and it is a brand name that could be used broadly rather than exclusively related to the metaverse.

It remains to be seen whether Facebook will rebrand or not, and I would not be surprised if the company chooses Meta for its rebranding.