Facebook Inc. will soon change its company name to reflect its growing focus on augmented and virtual reality, according to a new report.

A source said to have direct knowledge of the matter disclosed the planned rebrand to The Verge late Tuesday. The new name is described as a “closely-guarded secret” known to a select few employees.

The rebrand is expected to be made public in the foreseeable future. Facebook is reportedly planning to share the details of the plan at its annual AR and VR event, Connect, on Oct. 28. Facebook could potentially announce the new branding even sooner, according to The Verge’s source.

The move is believed to be part of the company’s effort to expand its focus beyond social media by making AR and VR a core component of its business. It has been speculated that Facebook’s new name will relate to Horizons, a virtual reality application currently being developed by the company. Horizons is touted as part social network, part video game, and is set to include features that will allow users to design their own virtual reality spaces.

Facebook has used the term “metaverse” to describe its work in the AR and VR markets. The metaverse that the company hopes to build is envisioned as a massive virtual reality space capable of accommodating everything from video games to e-commerce. Such a product could potentially create additional ad revenue streams for Facebook by enabling the social network to develop new digital marketing channels, such as virtual reality stores.

Facebook is investing heavily in its metaverse initiative. The company recently announced plans to hire 10,000 employees over the next five years in the European Union to work on metaverse-related projects. In another sign of how central the initiative has become to Facebook’s long-term growth plans, the social network recently promoted its vice president of AR and VR, Andrew Bosworth, to the role of chief technology officer.

Facebook is developing both software and hardware to advance its virtual reality ambitions. On the hardware side, the company provides the Oculus series of VR headsets and recently debuted a pair of AR glasses.

Facebook usually announces new Oculus devices at Connect, the forthcoming event where executives will reportedly discuss the company’s plans to rebrand. Bosworth hinted a few months ago that the company is working on enhanced Oculus hardware. The new devices may make their debut at Connect.  

For metaverse technology to become a major contributor to Facebook’s revenue, the company will have to significantly expand user adoption of its VR headsets. The social network hopes to achieve that partly by making Oculus hardware easier and  more convenient to use.

Last year, Facebook detailed that its research division is developing new optical technology to reduce the size of Oculus headsets. A VR headset renders graphics using three main optical components: a light source, a display and a lens made of glass or plastic that focuses the light.

That last component usually takes up the most space. According to Facebook, its researchers have developed a technique that could potentially be used to shrink the lens to a small fraction of the size of current hardware.

The product enhancements that Facebook could announce at Connect alongside the new company name are expected to be more incremental in nature than its experimental lens technology. Some reports have indicated that Facebook is readying an improved version of the Oculus Quest 2 headset. The device could be called Oculus Quest 2 Pro.

Facebook’s internal product development efforts aren’t the only factor that could advance its metaverse push in the long term.

The Qualcomm Inc. chips that Facebook uses to power its headsets are becoming faster and more power-efficient with every new release. As processor technology continues to improve, Facebook will gain the ability to support increasingly sophisticated VR use cases.

The widening rollout of 5G technology, in turn, is enabling faster internet connections for wireless devices such as VR headsets. Faster connectivity may make it possible to offload more processing tasks from consumers’ VR headsets to the cloud, which could further improve performance.  

Image: Anthony Quintano/Flickr