Facebook’s rumoured name-change reflects ambition—and weakness

WORTH NEARLY$TRN 1, Facebook is the world’s sixth-most-valuable company. Its revenues have grown by 56% in the past year, and its share price by more than a quarter. Nearly 3bn people use its products every month. Why would such a glittering success change its name, as the , a news site, reports it plans to within days?The likely official reason for the rebranding, which Facebook has not confirmed, is that the firm has outgrown the social network that Mark Zuckerberg started 17 years ago in a Harvard dorm. Today it encompasses other social apps (Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger) and video hardware (Oculus, Portal). It has launched a digital wallet (Novi) and may yet offer a currency (Diem). Mr Zuckerberg expects people eventually to associate his firm more with the “metaverse”, a virtual space for work, play and more, than with social media. This week Facebook said it would hire 10,000 people to work on the metaverse.