- Facebook just updated its logo to a design it says is "bolder, electric, and everlasting."
- Parent Meta dedicated 1,600 words to announcing this and other subtle changes in a blog post on Wednesday.
Meta unveiled a refreshed logo for Facebook on Wednesday, and it is blink-and-you'd-miss-it subtle: it's now a slightly deeper shade of blue.
The company described the new design as "bolder, electric, and everlasting," as part of a 1,600 blog post announcing this and other incremental design changes.
Looking at the new logo, I can't help but ask: is the "bolder" design in the room with us right now?
The company also announced in the same post that it is updating its emoji reactions to "evoke more dimensionality and emotion," and said it was rolling out a new dynamic color range featuring light blue, sky blue, navy, dark navy, and blue.
If you think the change seems less like radical innovation and more like much ado about nothing, you're not alone.
Users on X are already poking fun at the change, and comparing it to other incredibly subtle updates.
—໊ (@buffys) September 20, 2023
To be sure, Facebook's logo change marks a stark contrast to other moves, like Twitter's controversial rebrand to X — or its parent company's rebrand from Facebook to Meta in 2021, amid deep public backlash against the company.
But I can't help but wonder if the subtle and incremental change is a sign of Facebook's waning relevance.
A 2022 study by the Pew Research Center highlighted Facebook's dwindling appeal among US teens since 2014 — who are flocking to platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and sister app, Instagram.
And though Facebook said in its last quarterly earnings call that around 40% of the world's population — or around three billion people — uses the platform every month, its growth in monthly active users appears to be plateauing.
In the second quarter of the year, the company gained only a million monthly active users in the US and Canada, while it lost 2 million in Europe, per the earnings presentation.
Personally, I think it's probably going to take more than a deeper shade of blue to reverse the trend.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider, sent outside regular business hours.