It's all about the metaverse! According to an internal source at Facebook, the company is preparing a big announcement next week to change its corporate identity and name, which of course has nothing to do with all the negative associations that "Facebook" now has.

The Verge is reporting via this source that Facebook is going to go the way of Google and create an "Alphabet" umbrella identity for itself, now that it's a company that does social media stuff along with cryptocurrency, virtual reality hardware and software, and it's planning an upcoming expansion into "the metaverse."

And what better time for a total rebrand and a change in the conversation than the weeks following a major whistleblower incident that has cast the company in a whole new, insidious light?

The big rebranding has apparently been in the works for a while, but the timing seems a little curious. Mark Zuckerberg told The Verge back in July that, over the next few years, "we will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company."

The metaverse he refers to, in case you missed Monday's big announcement, is a project to create the next-gen internet, if you will — an effort likely to be joined by many companies around the globe to create virtual reality networks in which we can "travel" and "be with other people" in virtual space.

There's no hint about what the new name will be — per The Verge, it's "a closely-guarded secret within its walls and not known widely, even among its full senior leadership." The big announcement is being planned for the company's annual AR/VR-focused Connect conference, and Zuckerberg's keynote is happening on October 28 at 10 a.m. "The future is yours to imagine. Join Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives as they share the vision for the metaverse—a place of new immersive experiences and the next evolution of social technology, built by people like you," reads the event copy. Apparently the streamed keynote will be "open to all."

Some branding firm has likely been paid kajillions to work on this project, and the brainstorming sessions were surely a hoot. And all to come up with a name that people will rarely use, kind of like how we mostly still call it Google six years later!

Any guesses for the name? Clusterworld? Metaversebook?

Previously: Facebook Wants to Build a Hi-Res Version of 'Second Life' It's Calling the 'Metaverse'