12 days ago there was as "Facebook is nearing a reputational point of no return" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28786250 ), so maybe it's some kind of "better change before it gets worse"
Comcast still has a terrible reputation despite their best efforts to call themselves Xfinity wherever they legally can. Doubt it will work for Facebook, so long as they aren't allowed to continue buying up and coming competitors.
I don't think that it's gonna be a straight rebrand. If it does happens, it will be more of a restructuring in line with Google, with a new parent company being created.
Facebook is way too large and does too many things today to be called just Facebook
Or AT&T-like where they split up into different companies, then slowly combine over decades back into one that's bigger and more powerful after the heat is off.
It will 100% be an Alphabet-like move. Facebook will continue to be one of the products in their portfolio, and Instagram/WhatsApp/Oculus/others will get more prominence moving forward. They will also probably move their branding and advertising away from the "Facebook" name.
Despite how loathed Facebook is, if an Alphabet-like parent company launches a metaverse that _does not_ integrate with the social graph / is not monetized through advertising, it has a real shot.
I have felt FB has needed to offer a privacy focused social network for some time. Apple is quietly proving people are willing to pay for privacy-enabled social features.
My question is whether they will collaborate with Epic / Fortnite on this. I suspect they will need to in order to take on whatever ends up dominating the App Store Apple's eventual hardware platform.
Facebook is going to buy Epic Games, mark my words. It would be north of a $60B acquisition even if they purchase them at twice their current valuation. It would be poetic justice because Epic and FB both have a common enemy - Apple.
Facebook does not have a game engine and it is not currently a 3D-first company, and it makes sense that it will need one to underpin all of the content that will need to be made for the metaverse, by creators.
Their other two options are to buy Unity, Roblox, or make their own game engine. Or perhaps fork some of the work that's being done over for the Open3D engine?
I don’t know how the m&a works on that deal, but from a product perspective, I think Facebook needs the users and the youngs among them.
Facebook will never be successful onboarding FB users, their graphs and the whole messed up biz model into something of their own.
Epic has the upper hand. I think that company could continue without FB but see no evidence FB or rather Facebook’s new parent company, can build out a metaverse product with brain worm as successful as Fortnite.
Even if FB had churned out successful original gaming ideas it would be a long shot. Fortnite has crushed that hard.
The metaverse is best defined as an interoperable system of systems. Sound familiar?
That's because we already have it today with the web, but it's primarily based on a flat 2D model. WebGPU, WebXR, and WebAssembly are going to replace the photo, text, and video sites you use currently into 3D spatial ones that you can experience and live in. We'll have the ability to shop in virtual storefronts both for our avatars and for real life goods, chat with others in whatever environment we want with customizable surroundings, and of course browse worlds created by others with easy to use tools.
This is the vision my team at Wonder is building, so that any game engine can export complex spatial content to the browser, at near native performance. The web is powerful because it's cross-platform by default, and it "just works everywhere".
No 30% from walled gardens either!
Link to our Discord if you want to learn more or join us:
Bubbly startup pitch: “… WebGPU, WebXR, and WebAssembly are going to replace the photo, text, and video sites you use currently into 3D spatial ones that you can experience and live in...”
My reaction: “Aw, hell no! The flip to video was bad enough! Leave text alone!”
Just out of sheer practicality, it's hard to understand the appeal of 3D (social) spaces. The web/text/document medium of the "classic" web is easily displayable from watch displays to 80" TVs. You can stack text, video, music conveniently and perceptually obviously on 2D planar spaces. You can just glance away to have a context of the real world - as such, comparable and fitting to other physical activities.
I get some aspects of VR, like gaming or the increasing trend to use virtual displays for productivity (stacking 2D windows). But accessing this space seems to be complicated even years ahead - the only way is to wear large, vision-blocking eyewear, or at least display a full-screen application that takes the user out of context. You can add in cameras and virtual 2D desktops to help, but it's an all-encompassing experience where getting in and out is a major, reorienting move. This is appealing for an ad company (100% eyeball control must be immensely valuable) or maybe for some mental needs ("escape reality") but I see this problematic and hard to integrate into society and the human experience.
I would browse it and find a fair number of people meeting up and playing games.
But, I also found a lot of people just hanging out too. Shopping, occupying spaces and talking about stuff. The stay home spouse talking shit about their partner to a friend was pretty common too.
The VR bit you wrote resonates with me. I have similar questions. But the idea of a 3D space itself works for plenty of people.
he is a cartoon character trying to pull us into his world. ok that's mean but, maybe i am getting old or something but the idea really doesn't appeal to me that much. i kinda wanna stop using computers and electronic devices. anyone realize how fast time goes by when you are glued to your monitor?
Before you use your laptop or phone, write down exactly what it is that you want to achieve. Then, time how long it takes, and recall exactly what it was you did end up doing.
As you say, the results are surprising. I have worked very hard to remove tech from my personal and social life as much as possible.
Edit: youtube is the worst for this. I know perfectly well that 99% of youtube videos could be summarised in a few sentences, yet still find myself watching endless rubbish.
They should rebrand to Faceboot - "“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.” George Orwell
edit: I see a bright future for Oculus if it's marketed and shaped as a faceboot. /s
it would look something like this: https://i.imgflip.com/2y3xdw.jpg
Do these rebrands even work? I see a couple of examples in other comments, like Comcast -> Xfinity, Philip Morris -> Altria, but this is the first time I see the name Altria. Even earlier this month when I was reading an article about tobacco, it used the name Philip Morris.
Google's rebranding to Alphabet also feels semi-successful. Technically Fitbit is a Google's sister company under the Alphabet umbrella, but all the news I've seen reported it as "Google acquires Fitbit". I only see the Alphabet name when I read about earnings reports and their stock value, and even then it's always introduced as "Alphabet, the Google parent company"
The notorious military contractor Blackwater rebranded to 'Xe Services' in 2009. They were coming off a lot of heat 2007 incident where their employees killed a number of Iraqi citizens. I remember hearing that the name change was meant to obfuscate the company as searching for Xe didn't yield many results in search or documents. And Blackwater sounds dangerous. Newspapers continued to use "the company formerly known as Blackwater". Even wikipedia has it under Blackwater.
In 2011, they went a step further and changed their name again to 'Academi', which is pretty funny.
Anecdotally, a notorious real estate developer named Blackstone where I lived got into a lot of heat, and afterwards rebranded to a local-language version of "DearCity". Now everyone seems to have forgotten their ruthless practices. To be fair, they went from a hilarious villain-like name to an almost cartoonishly cute one. But jokes on the public, because it works. They're largely off the hook in the publics eye now
Not sure about ByteDance, what did they rebrand from?
Snap - this one worked, but I think partially because it's a name drop, rather than a full rebranding. I think it has higher chance to be successful (like "Apple Computers" -> "Apple" or "GrabTaxi" -> "Grab"), because it expands on the current brand instead of trying to be something different. I think if Snapchat rebranded to "Spectacle" or "CamCom" or something different, we'd still be reading "previously known as Snapchat" for years to come
In Google's case the intention wasn't to use Alphabet as a brand. They don't even own the domain name, Twitter handle etc. for it. They didn't change their stock ticker name either. Google is way too successful and positive a brand to give it up.
It always feels like a shark-jump when somebody's marketing department needs a bonus and has nothing better to do than "rebrand".
It's also insulting your customers when communicating that (a) there's more value after a rebrand when there's obviously none; and (b) customer is dumb or shallow enough to be swayed by messaging and not the product.
75 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 159 ms ] threadEdit: fix typo
Facebook is way too large and does too many things today to be called just Facebook
Or as an homage to Orwell: Faceboot.
They could always go back to their Facemash roots.
Or acquire the rights to Skynet.
See also: Comcast → Xfinity
I have felt FB has needed to offer a privacy focused social network for some time. Apple is quietly proving people are willing to pay for privacy-enabled social features.
My question is whether they will collaborate with Epic / Fortnite on this. I suspect they will need to in order to take on whatever ends up dominating the App Store Apple's eventual hardware platform.
Facebook does not have a game engine and it is not currently a 3D-first company, and it makes sense that it will need one to underpin all of the content that will need to be made for the metaverse, by creators.
Facebook will never be successful onboarding FB users, their graphs and the whole messed up biz model into something of their own.
Epic has the upper hand. I think that company could continue without FB but see no evidence FB or rather Facebook’s new parent company, can build out a metaverse product with brain worm as successful as Fortnite.
Even if FB had churned out successful original gaming ideas it would be a long shot. Fortnite has crushed that hard.
From 2013: https://andrewchen.com/why-developers-are-leaving-the-facebo...
They're doing it *so that* it integrates with social graph AND is another advertising channel.
That's because we already have it today with the web, but it's primarily based on a flat 2D model. WebGPU, WebXR, and WebAssembly are going to replace the photo, text, and video sites you use currently into 3D spatial ones that you can experience and live in. We'll have the ability to shop in virtual storefronts both for our avatars and for real life goods, chat with others in whatever environment we want with customizable surroundings, and of course browse worlds created by others with easy to use tools.
This is the vision my team at Wonder is building, so that any game engine can export complex spatial content to the browser, at near native performance. The web is powerful because it's cross-platform by default, and it "just works everywhere".
No 30% from walled gardens either!
Link to our Discord if you want to learn more or join us:
https://discord.gg/zUSZ3T8
Prove it. Great claims demand great evidence.
Bubbly startup pitch: “… WebGPU, WebXR, and WebAssembly are going to replace the photo, text, and video sites you use currently into 3D spatial ones that you can experience and live in...”
My reaction: “Aw, hell no! The flip to video was bad enough! Leave text alone!”
I get some aspects of VR, like gaming or the increasing trend to use virtual displays for productivity (stacking 2D windows). But accessing this space seems to be complicated even years ahead - the only way is to wear large, vision-blocking eyewear, or at least display a full-screen application that takes the user out of context. You can add in cameras and virtual 2D desktops to help, but it's an all-encompassing experience where getting in and out is a major, reorienting move. This is appealing for an ad company (100% eyeball control must be immensely valuable) or maybe for some mental needs ("escape reality") but I see this problematic and hard to integrate into society and the human experience.
I would browse it and find a fair number of people meeting up and playing games.
But, I also found a lot of people just hanging out too. Shopping, occupying spaces and talking about stuff. The stay home spouse talking shit about their partner to a friend was pretty common too.
The VR bit you wrote resonates with me. I have similar questions. But the idea of a 3D space itself works for plenty of people.
As you say, the results are surprising. I have worked very hard to remove tech from my personal and social life as much as possible.
Edit: youtube is the worst for this. I know perfectly well that 99% of youtube videos could be summarised in a few sentences, yet still find myself watching endless rubbish.
edit: I see a bright future for Oculus if it's marketed and shaped as a faceboot. /s it would look something like this: https://i.imgflip.com/2y3xdw.jpg
Google's rebranding to Alphabet also feels semi-successful. Technically Fitbit is a Google's sister company under the Alphabet umbrella, but all the news I've seen reported it as "Google acquires Fitbit". I only see the Alphabet name when I read about earnings reports and their stock value, and even then it's always introduced as "Alphabet, the Google parent company"
In 2011, they went a step further and changed their name again to 'Academi', which is pretty funny.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_(company)
Snap - this one worked, but I think partially because it's a name drop, rather than a full rebranding. I think it has higher chance to be successful (like "Apple Computers" -> "Apple" or "GrabTaxi" -> "Grab"), because it expands on the current brand instead of trying to be something different. I think if Snapchat rebranded to "Spectacle" or "CamCom" or something different, we'd still be reading "previously known as Snapchat" for years to come
Alphabet is a holding company, nothing more.
It's also insulting your customers when communicating that (a) there's more value after a rebrand when there's obviously none; and (b) customer is dumb or shallow enough to be swayed by messaging and not the product.