Facebooks new branding distinguishes app from acquisitions

Facebook wants more people to know it owns Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus while still maintaining a distinct identity for its main app.

So today Facebook launched a new capitalization and typography format for its company name, using all capital letters and a shifting color scheme that highlights Instagrams purple gradient and WhatsApps green tint.

The Information reported Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was unsatisfied with the credit Facebook was getting for owning Instagram and WhatsApp.

Zuckerberg double-down on that sentiment during this months earnings call as a response to questions about anti-trust investigations against the company that could seek to force a spin off of its acquisitions. Zuckerberg noted that it wa Facebooks resources in areas like anti-spam, internationalization, and ads that helped turn Instagram from a sub-50 million user product to a billion-plus one today.

Beyond rebranding, its working on making Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram Direct a unified interoperable and encrypted messaging system where users can chat across the apps.

Given Facebooks rash of data security, developer platform, election interference, and ongoing privacy scandals, its probably better off if people think they can escape the toxicity by using Instagram.

Now it seems Facebook is happy to burn down some of the credibility of its younger apps if it builds up the central company.

Original article
Author: Josh Constine

TechCrunch is a leading technology media property, dedicated to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new Internet products, and breaking tech news.

Josh Constine has recently written 11 articles on similar topics including :
  1. "Who fact-checks the fact-checkers? Did Trump call coronavirus the Democrats new hoax? Those are the big questions emerging from a controversial false label applied to Politico and NBC News stories by right-wing publisher The Daily Caller". (March 3, 2020)
  2. "Are those red notification dots on your Facebook home screen driving you crazy? Sick of Facebook Marketplace wasting your screen space? Now you can control what appears in the Facebook apps navigation bar thanks to a new option called Shortcut Bar Settings". (November 11, 2019)
  3. "There’s a strategic cost to the defection of Visa, Stripe, eBay, and more from the Facebook-led cryptocurrency Libra Association. They’re not just names dropping off a list. Each potentially made Libra more useful, ubiquitous, or reputable". (October 13, 2019)
  4. "After eBay, Visa, Stripe and other high-profile partners ditched the Facebook -backed cryptocurrency collective, Libra scored a win today with the addition of Shopify". (February 21, 2020)
  5. "Permitting falsehood in political advertising would work if we had a model democracy, but we don’t. Not only are candidates dishonest, but voters aren’t educated, and the media isn’t objective. And now, hyperlinks turn lies into donations and donations into louder lies. The checks don’t balance". (October 14, 2019)
  6. "Facebook plans to challenge Europe’s top court, which today ruled that EU countries can order Facebook to globally remove content that violates local laws". (October 4, 2019)
  7. "If I watch a Story cross-posted from Instagram to Facebook on either of the apps, it should appear as watched at the back of the Stories row on the other app". (January 23, 2020)
  8. "Its an open secret that every company is on fire, says Kintaba co-founder John Egan. At any given moment something is going horribly wrong in a way that it has never gone wrong before. Code failure downtimes, server outages and hack attacks plague engineering teams". (February 10, 2020)
  9. "If their post has lots of Likes, you feel jealous. If your post doesn’t get enough Likes, you feel embarrassed. And when you just chase Likes, you distort your life seeking moments that score them, or censor it fearing you won’t look popular without them". (September 26, 2019)
  10. "$28 million-funded crypto startup Tagomi will be the newest member of the Libra Association that governs the Facebook-backed Libra stablecoin, TechCrunch has learned. A formal announcement of Tagomi joining was slated for Friday or next week". (February 26, 2020)
  11. "Are those red notification dots on your Facebook home screen driving you crazy? Sick of Facebook Marketplace wasting your screen space? Now you can control what appears in the Facebook apps navigation bar thanks to a new option called Shortcuts Bar Settings". (November 11, 2019)
Posted on  , , ,