Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, has changed its name to Meta. Meta will be the name of the parent company while the social media platforms under it will retain their individual names, i.e. Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram.
This move mirrors what Google did in 2015 in a similar restructure that saw its parent company named Alphabet. However, the name has not caught on as initially hoped.
The name change, which was announced by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, aligns with the company’s growing focus on the metaverse, which refers to efforts to combine virtual and Augmented Reality technologies in a new online realm.
“Today we’re seen as a social media company,” Zuckerberg said during Meta’s launch, “but in our DNA, we are a company that builds technology to connect people. And the metaverse is the next frontier, just like social networking was when we got started.”
The name Meta, Zuckerberg says, was inspired by the Greek word meta, which means “beyond” “For me, it symbolizes that there is always more to build.”
The “metaverse” commonly found in science fiction shows and books refers to an online world where people can game, work and communicate in a virtual environment, often using VR headsets. Many people believe this is where the future of the internet lies, rather than just being a version of VR.
Zuckerberg also says that over time, users will not need to use Facebook to get access to the company’s other services.
“I know that some people will say that this isn’t a time to focus on the future, and I want to acknowledge that there are important issues to work on in the present. There always will be,” Zuckerberg said. “So for many people, I’m just not sure [if] there ever will be a good time to focus on the future. But I also know that there are a lot of you who feel the same way that I do.”
“We live for what we’re building,” Zuckerberg added. “And while we make mistakes, we keep learning and building and moving forward.”
“Your devices won’t be the focal point of your attention anymore,” he said. “We’re starting to see a lot of these technologies coming together in the next five or 10 years. A lot of this is going to be mainstream and a lot of us will be creating and inhabiting worlds that are just as detailed and convincing as this one, on a daily basis.”
Damage limitation and shift of focus
Facebook over the recent weeks has been hit with a non-stop wave of criticism thanks to leaked documents provided to the media by a former employee named Frances Haugen.
Facebook, whose brand has now been devalued as a result in the eyes of many young people and critics, might take Zuckerberg’s move of distancing the Facebook name under the cover of Meta as an evasion tactic.
Whether truly the metaverse is the future of the internet we can only wait to find out, but Meta has already committed to hiring 10,000 people in Europe to build out their concept while also spending 10 billion dollars on the project in 2021 alone.
Featured image courtesy: Creative Bloq
