Posted by Sidique
Facebook is adding its own brand name alongside the other two — in the following format: ‘Instagram from Facebook’; ‘WhatsApp from Facebook.’
The cheap perfume style rebranding was first reported by The Information which cites three people familiar with the matter who told it employees for the two apps were recently notified internally of the plan to rebrand.
“The move to add Facebook’s name to the apps has been met with surprise and confusion internally, reflecting the autonomy that the units have operated under,” it said. Although it also reported that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also been frustrated that Facebook doesn’t get more credit for the growth of Instagram and WhatsApp.
So it sounds like Facebook may be hoping for a little reverse osmosis brand-washing — aka leveraging the popularity of its cleaner social apps to detoxify the scandal-hit mothership.
Not that Facebook is saying anything like that publicly, of course.
In a statement to The Information confirming the rebranding, it explained it thus: “We want to be clearer about the products and services that are part of Facebook.”
The rebranding also comes at a time when Facebook is facing at least two antitrust investigations on its home turf — where calls for Facebook and other big tech giants to be broken up are now a regular feature of the campaign trail…
We can only surmise the legal advice Facebook must be receiving vis-a-vis what it should do to try to close down break up arguments that could deprive it of its pair of golden growth geese.
For the first time in more than half a decade, Facebook wants to inform you that it owns Instagram, the hyper-popular rival social networking app it acquired for a $1BN steal back in 2012.
Ditto messaging platform WhatsApp — which Mark Zuckerberg splurged $19BN on a couple of years later to keep feeding eyeballs into his growth engine.Facebook is adding its own brand name alongside the other two — in the following format: ‘Instagram from Facebook’; ‘WhatsApp from Facebook.’
The cheap perfume style rebranding was first reported by The Information which cites three people familiar with the matter who told it employees for the two apps were recently notified internally of the plan to rebrand.
“The move to add Facebook’s name to the apps has been met with surprise and confusion internally, reflecting the autonomy that the units have operated under,” it said. Although it also reported that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also been frustrated that Facebook doesn’t get more credit for the growth of Instagram and WhatsApp.
So it sounds like Facebook may be hoping for a little reverse osmosis brand-washing — aka leveraging the popularity of its cleaner social apps to detoxify the scandal-hit mothership.
Not that Facebook is saying anything like that publicly, of course.
In a statement to The Information confirming the rebranding, it explained it thus: “We want to be clearer about the products and services that are part of Facebook.”
The rebranding also comes at a time when Facebook is facing at least two antitrust investigations on its home turf — where calls for Facebook and other big tech giants to be broken up are now a regular feature of the campaign trail…
We can only surmise the legal advice Facebook must be receiving vis-a-vis what it should do to try to close down break up arguments that could deprive it of its pair of golden growth geese.
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