Facebook finally changed its name to Meta which is a play off the buzzword “Meta-Verse”. It’s not a coincidence as this idea has been passing around the media for months. At the company’s core connect event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg came out with the news that wasn’t shocking to some parts of the audience.
“To reflect who we are and what we hope to build, I am proud to announce that starting today, our company is now Meta. Our mission remains the same — it’s still about bringing people together. Our apps and our brands — they’re not changing either,” Mark Zuckerberg said. He further went to lay out his vision. “From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first.”
It’s interesting to see where “Meta”, will navigate from here. Critics have been saying that it’s just another branding move to clear their name up a bit in the media. Over the last few months, Facebook has been coming under a lot of pressure from regulators looking to clamp down on perceived malpractices within the company.
A recent blow to the company’s image came from Frances Haugen who was disgusted with how the company goes about operating many layers of the business.
She came out with documents to prove her case which is causing quite a stir so far. But at this point, the social media giant is probably too big to fail given that the overall userbase is closely approaching 3 billion. It’s too integrated at this point to get clamped down.
At the same time, competitors are sprouting up which will likely pose an existential threat for Facebook further down. Hence why another reason for the name change. To rebrand the company in such a way as to plan for future technologies such as the Meta-Verse.
Meta-Verse
Basically, with the Meta-Verse the digital and the physical world will merge to a point of ubiquity. Facebook is assuming that they can play a large part in it given their lackluster efforts so far in the VR market which seems to be stagnating a bit and a heavy investment for Facebook on the balance sheets.
With the Meta-Verse, the media will follow you everywhere you go, our reality through whatever headset or device at that particular time down the future, will allow us to get another layer of experience. For example, I could try on clothes in a store without having to be actually wearing them. I could purchase an item by just passing a shop. I could interact in virtual environments without actually being there.
New Future
The branding seems like it could breathe a new lease of life into Facebook, which at this moment is getting tomatoes thrown at it. It’s not the first tech company to make such as change. In 2015, Google create a new corporate structure called Alphabet which will act as the umbrella for Google’s many subsidiaries.
The time and motive behind Facebook’s change seem risky and strange given all the dark clouds surrounding the company. Let’s hope it’s for the good of the company and its users.
