Facebook is not just about a single social media platform, even though it started as one 15 years ago. Over time, Facebook bought various companies and now offers a suite of products, including the popular WhatsApp, Instagram, Oculus and more. With a new logo, Facebook wants to be clear about products it owns and adding "from Facebook" didn't seem to satisfy the social media giant.
Facebook introduced a new logo that represents the company as a brand. Facebook, with its iconic blue logo, will remain unchanged and continue representing the social media platform. The new logo, however, will be used as a branding label Facebook can put on all of its products as a sign of ownership.
"People should know which companies make the products they use. Our main services include the Facebook app, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, Workplace, Portal and Calibra. These apps and technologies have shared infrastructure for years and the teams behind them frequently work together," Facebook said in a blog post.
Facebook is right about it. It has spent billions into these products and people don't even know about it. In a way, it has helped these apps stay out of Facebook's bad press. According to a recent Pew survey, only 29 percent of Americans correctly answered that Instagram and WhatsApp are owned by Facebook. These are the most popular apps in the social space and the fact that people don't know about who owns them must have irked Facebook.
Facebook bought WhatsApp in a deal worth $16 billion in February 2014. Instagram was acquired by the social media giant in 2012 for $1 billion in cash and stock. But both these apps have been running independently, with some level of cross-platform connection to Facebook that doesn't really portray its ownership.
Facebook's new logo
Facebook's new logo is the first among its products to have all-caps text. There's a subtle hint of all the products in the new logo. Facebook showed a GIF of the redesigned logo, displaying different colours to represent its products - blue for Facebook (app), green for WhatsApp, purple for Instagram and so on.
Facebook's new logo will be seen across all of its products in the weeks to come. In addition, this will be the logo to be used in all Facebook marketing materials, including a new website.
This new change, a rather big one in over a decade, comes amidst ongoing scuffle between Facebook and lawmakers. The social media giant has been receiving a lot of bad press over incidents of data breaches and its alleged involvement in spreading misinformation during the 2016 US elections. By colouring the logo, Facebook aims to get some goodwill through its association with apps like Instagram, Bloomberg reported. But could it backfire? Only time will tell.
