There is hardly anybody who doesn’t know about Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, but most people don’t know the fact that both Instagram and WhatsApp is owned by Facebook. To make people aware of the services they use regularly, Facebook has decided to rebrand WhatsApp and Instagram to increase the brand value among the users of the ecosystem. Within a few days, both WhatsApp and Instagram will be renamed to WhatsApp from Facebook and Instagram from Facebook. Yes, that is Facebook’s small yet mighty step to make people aware of Facebook and its products.
Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of the social network giant Facebook bought Instagram and WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014 respectively, and last year the company took the decision to have more control over its services.WhatsApp and Instagram on Apple App Store and Google Play Store will be renamed to Instagram from Facebook and Whatsapp from Facebook in the coming days but there isn’t any specific timeline about when the changes will take place. Facebook has confirmed this news, but it also stated that the name change will be applicable only to the Google Play Store and Apple app store, and in the login and signup pages of the services.
However Facebook also stated that the name change will not be applicable to the app in the app drawer or the home screen of the handset, and whether any changes will be made in the title isn’t clear yet. The app icons will also remain the same after the name change. According to a Facebook spokesperson, they want to make things clear about their products and services to people using the same. Both WhatsApp and Instagram have their own employees and managers, but Facebook wants to make them less independent after adding the name Facebook to their titles. Facebook has already changed the name of its VR product from Oculus to Oculus from Facebook.
There aren’t many chances that the name change will have any implications on how we can use the services. But the way our private data is dealt on both Instagram and WhatsApp is likely to be changed. There isn’t any official confirmation about how our WhatsApp and Instagram data will be dealt with by Facebook. WhatsApp already has end-to-end encryption for the messages that we send, I don’t think Facebook will remove any of the useful features either from WhatsApp or Instagram. It is just a name change, a rebranding, a way to increase brand awareness, whatever you may call it, and it doesn’t seem to be anything more than that.
That’s all about the name change. Do you think it is a big step by Facebook? Please let me know about it in the comment section below.
