Early this year, Mark Zuckerberg the owner of Facebook said that he planned to merge WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram messaging services by the end of this year or early 2020.
Mr. Zuckerberg said the integration would help break down communication barriers among users of Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram. Ever since the announcement, Facebook has been working on its planned cross platform chat.
Sometime in April, renowned app reverse engineer, Jane Manchun Wong shared screenshots that showed Facebook working on returning the Messenger feature back to the Facebook main app.
In another move, WhatsApp also has in beta 'Share to Facebook Story', a feature that allow WhatsApp users to share their Story to Facebook. Now, Facebook is set to rebrand WhatsApp and Instagram and add its name to both apps.
The social giant is rebranding WhatsApp to "WhatsApp from Facebook" and Instagram to "Instagram from Facebook."
Facebook has for years allowed both WhatsApp and Instagram to operate and be branded independently. People familiar with the matter says the move signals Facebook plans to control Instagram and WhatsApp by adding its name to both apps.
Facebook is also using a similar pattern to rebrand other apps including Workplace (an app that connects employees to one another via internal social network.
The whole rebranding process is said to be taking place gradually though the company has began to add its name to some screens on Instagram for iOS and Android.
A spokesperson for Facebook said the company "want to be clearer about the products and services that are part of Facebook."
The new appellation can be seen in the About section on application stores that WhatsApp and Instagram are properties of Facebook.