Facebook has announced that it will change its name to Meta to reflect the company’s approach and its commitment to building the metaverse, a virtual world where people work, play, learn and connect with their friends and family.
Meta will be a new corporate brand that will rebrand Facebook and all its associated services, including the Instagram photo application, the WhatsApp messaging application and its applications based on virtual and augmented reality. Facebook says it will begin trading on the stock markets under the new name on December 1.
Finish Facebook, start Meta
From the company they assure that in their DNA, they are a company that creates technology to connect people and the metaverse is the next frontier , just like social networks were a few years ago. Facebook executives chose the word Meta to rename the company, since it is a Greek word that means beyond and that symbolizes that there is always something more to build and achieve.
In a metaverse preview, the avatars are playing chess, in a virtual concert, learning and working remotely. In the next five to ten years, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes that all these virtual experiences will become commonplace. In the next decade, expect there to be a billion users in the metaverse, each with their own unique avatar and characteristics.
An unprecedented reputation crisis
The widely discussed rebrand underscores how Facebook, founded in 2004, has grown into a company that goes far beyond social media. Facebook owns virtual reality headset maker Oculus, has been involved in making the Portal video chat device, and partnered with Ray-Ban to launch its first pair of smart glasses earlier this year. The transition to Meta also marks the most prominent rebranding of a technology company since 2015, when Google founded its parent company Alphabet.
However, a new corporate name doesn’t fix Facebook’s seemingly endless list of problems. For years, the company has faced criticism that it does not do enough to safeguard privacy, combat hate speech, and stop the spread of fake news on its platform.
In fact, right now, the social network is grappling with more allegations that it puts profit over user safety after former Facebook product manager turned whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked an internal investigation into the United States Congress. and the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission. The Wall Street Journal , and later a consortium of American and international media outlets published very negative news about Facebook based on some of those leaked documents.
For its part, the company ensures that its internal investigation is being misrepresented by the media to offer a negative image of the company.
