After much speculation, Facebook, the company that owns platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, was renamed Meta on October 28. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told attendees at the company’s annual Connect conference: “Currently, our product is so closely linked to one product that it cannot represent everything we do today, let alone a future one. Over time, I hope we will be seen as a flexible company, and I want to focus our work and ownership on what we build on. “
It is important to note that Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram will all be keeping track of their names. But the productive and caring companies will now be called Meta – similar to Google’s 2015 business redesign into a parent company called Alphabet. Facebook (the company) even changed its sign outside its building on the 28th of October.
Table of Contents
What is Meta?
Meta is a new name for Mark Zuckerberg’s business empire – a company that now transcends social media platform applications and has gone into the development and production of new technologies.
Prior to the October 28 announcement, there were speculations about a possible name change as Facebook had covered the logo on its California HQ with ’emoji’ emoji.
But while the parent company is now no longer known as Facebook, the Facebook name will always be in the status of the social media app.
Indeed, everyday users of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp will probably not notice the difference in apps.
Explaining the move, Mr. Zuckerberg said, “increasingly, [Facebook] does not cover everything we do.
“Building our social media platforms will always be important to us but at the moment our entire product is so connected to one product that you can’t stand everything we do today, let alone the future.”
“Over time, I hope we will be seen as a metaverse company. And I want to emphasize our work and our identity in what we build on. “
It is a step in line with what Google did when it changed its parent company name to Alphabet in 2015 – a change that needed to be changed beyond the search engine.
One of the most important announcements Mr. Zuckerberg made was about the ‘North Star’ Meta – business propaganda about the company’s mission.
He said Meta “will be changing first, not Facebook first”.
In fact, it means that Facebook and social media will no longer be the company’s main focus.
Instead, it will dump its resources on creating virtual reality products and stopping Metaverse.
The announcement of the new name and the change in the company’s approach came after a series of controversies over how the Facebook app has been used in recent years.
The forum has been heavily criticized for its handling of data, political advertising, and harmful content, such as hate speech.
It has led some to suggest that name change is nothing more than a PR stunt from the Silicon Valley giant.
What does the new Facebook name mean?
Mark Zuckerberg, in his opening remarks, said he chose the word Meta in part because it “reflects the breadth of what we are doing and the future we want to help build”.
But he also said he chose it as in Greek it means ‘beyond’.
“To me, it symbolizes that there is always more to build; there is always the next chapter in the story, “he explained.
“For us, it is a story that started in the dorm room and grew beyond anything we can imagine into a family of apps that people use to find, find their voice, start businesses and communities, and the movements that change the world.
“I am proud of what we have built so far and I am happy next time as we move beyond what can happen today.
“Without the limits of screens, beyond the limits of distance and physics and the future where everyone can be with each other, create new opportunities and experience new things.”
And in what could be a tag line for a new product, Mr. Zuckerberg said: “The future will be more than anything we can imagine”.
What is a metaverse
The name was chosen to echo the key product Zuckerberg hopes Facebook – now Meta – will represent: metaverse, the name of a shared 3D online space shared by many companies that would like to create it as a version of the future version. the Internet.
“In the future, you will be able to send a text message immediately like a hologram to the office without going to work, a concert with friends, or your parents’ living room to find out,” Zuckerberg wrote in a letter announcing Facebook’s redesign. as Meta.
But there is a future. Not now. The metaverse revealed by the company in August looks like the Sims or another immersive world: the 2003 video game Second Life.
First of all, Meta does not just want to be known as a social media platform. “They do not want to be prisoners on someone else’s court. They want others to be prisoners on their platform. Meta has made empty references to Apple in its announcement, saying it wants to avoid a single company that limits what you can do and charges higher fees
“All the negative reports and political battles that are currently being fought are related to their communications products, so introducing something completely new – to their minds – is a way to completely re-invent and resume, without changing much of the existing problematic products. Metaverse is an online world where people can play, work and communicate in a visible environment.
The term refers to a realistic online environment in which the human community can participate in the form of avatars.
This can be achieved by a combination of real, unpopular, and virtual reality.
This world already exists today with the Meta-owned product Oculus, which will itself be renamed the Meta Quest in 2022, as well as Meta integration with screen manufacturer Ray-Ban that allows users to view social media notifications through their glasses or mirrors of the sun.
In his introduction, Mark Zuckerberg showed how his new metaverse concept ‘Horizon’ could work in our future lives.
What happens if Meta becomes successful?
One problem with Meta trying to be the only company that supports metaverse is the important role it can play in our lives if its vision for the future becomes a reality. The company has faced the challenge of its key applications that have taken away the ability to connect with large parts of the world in recent months – and if such a thing were to happen in a ubiquitous VR environment like metaverse, the consequences could be huge.
Leave a Reply