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Designing the Facebook Company Brand

facebook.design

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Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#101

Post by bredren »

lostgame wrote: post #40

Would’ve been better, IMHO; to pull an Alphabet and rename the company. This reminds me a little of the ‘Apple TV’ vs. ‘Apple TV’ article running around recently. If Facebook wants to differentiate their company from their service, a rename makes sense and also wouldn’t hurt their reputation when they create new products.

I was thinking similarly. Not that it needed to rename it but that it was an obvious option available.

I think the choice to keep the main company as "Facebook" could be seen as hubris or overconfidence in the lasting trust in the name.

There's no question the company itself has been under attack for privacy, impact on social behavior, its profit and negligence in running ads that undermined integrity of the 2016 US Presidential election, and impact on the open web by making FB logins a universal user auth federation etc.

So creating a new super company name, like Alphabet, which sounds a lot like Altria (phillip morris) to me, that isn't directly tied to the other companies would have been a sensible direction.

Since he's the ultimate decider, it's hard for me to see this choice "Facebook's product: Facebook" as an extension of the personality and ego of the guy at the top.

Which is to say, the company does not believe the brand has been significantly undermined by various controversies. Or that it has but thinks it can recover and is fighting back in a way by keeping the name.

And admittedly, I suspect "Facebook" and its companies have a better idea of the moods of internet users than anyone else.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#103

Post by legitster »

Roodgorf wrote: post #95
legitster wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech companies in particular have very concentrated employee bases - there is a lot of incentive to grandstand against them if your constituency doesn't get many benefits, especially if that constituency comes from places that don't have much in the way of technical literacy. Still, breaking up any company for being too successful is a great way to keep your economy from growing. I don't imagine sane politicians will…

Saying that the reason FB is being targeted for anti-trust is that they are simply too successful feels like a vast oversimplification of the situation.

True, but I hear these conversations brought up against every tech company, regardless of what they are doing or why. Amputation may be a valid prescription for a patient, but if amputation is always the prescription, I may assume we are diagnosing wrongly.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#105

Post by unethical_ban »

soperj wrote: post #76
unethical_ban wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've never had communications platforms so centralized, nor had comms companies with so much editorial control over peoples' exposure to information.

AT&T?

>editorial control

And as mentioned elsewhere, it was broken up, and then allowed to recongeal.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#106

Post by kops »

Instagram and WhatsApp are the bought step kids of facebook and by all indications(ok just hearsay) are more relevant(read popular) than the original product i.e. the facebook. A sound investment but I can imagine how it feels for Zuckerberg. While recently trying to advertise on Instagram it became evident how desperately facebook wants to put itself in front of these products and brands. I kind of understand at a personal level but at the business level it doesn't make so much sense. I almost feel sorry for Zuckerberg. Actually I don't ;-)

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#107

Post by oflannabhra »

I know it is easy to be cynical on these types of "announcements", but I am having a really, really hard time understanding how curved strokes (or any branding decision) can result in empathy or "open space for peoples stories".

Empathy is a human characteristic. To think that a word mark can have (or even create) it is patently ridiculous. In fact, I'd say it cheapens the meaning of the word to the point where true empathy means less.

This press release contains a type of language specific to our current time that will age like milk.

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#108

Post by zaphod4prez »

dmix wrote: post #50
pron wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because democratic societies generally dislike so much power concentrated in the hands of undemocratic institutions.

Anti-trust laws are there for economic reasons, ie, monopolies preventing competition leaving society worse-off as a whole than can be gained from efficiencies of a single organization. It also typically requires proof of anti-competitive behaviour, beyond just being the biggest in the market. A lot of companies dominate their markets but don't engage in overt anti-competitive behaviour. I don't think they've ever be…

Your last sentence does not seem right to me, and it also seems to be phrased in a disingenuous way. "punishing companies for not serving some greater democratic service" is a very weird way to describe a legitimate worry about consolidation of private power (which, by the way, has a very long history).

Of course, healthy competition & pricing is a core issue here (duh). But power, in all its forms, is also a key issue. The founding fathers were very concerned about a corporation gaining too much power and interfering with democracy [1].

In addition, Facebook is constantly engaged in anti-competitive and unacceptable behavior, including buying multiple competitors (anti-competitive) and lying about its product (the recent inflated-ad-views scandal, which was literally a scam). The antitrust case against fb is complicated by the nature of the business, but there are plenty of very good reasons for the gov to investigate fb for antitrust violations [2].

Matt Stoller has done some good writing on monopoly, so has Binyamin Appelbaum. Both of them have books worth reading.

[1]: In 1816, Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, said he hoped to "crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." (https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Angela-Carell...)

[2]: https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...

Re: Designing the Facebook Company Brand

#109

Post by MuffinFlavored »

notatoad wrote: post #29
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the government itching to break up tech companies? I feel like it's a bad idea for them to get involved at all.

as the power of the big tech companies approach the power of the government, governments are naturally going to seek to limit their power.

Can you elaborate how Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/WhatsApp/Google/Microsoft/Apple are approaching power levels of the government?

I know that Facebook + Twitter political ads are "powerful", as well as "fake news" spreading when it is relates to politics. I'd be curious to hear any other examples if you have them.

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