Following rumours that it might, Facebook has now officially changed its name to Meta. To be clear we’re talking about Facebook the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus and not the social media platform.
Why has the company decided to change it’s name? Well if you ask the company’s public relations team it’s because Meta, “brings together our apps and technologies under one new company brand”. If you ask somebody else, they might say it’s because the name Facebook has become synonymous with personal data abuses, fostering toxic environments and giving misinformation peddlers a place to thrive.
Meta was also seemingly chosen because of Mark Zuckerberg’s obsession with building a metaverse, something a press release about the name change didn’t waste anytime getting into.
“The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together — and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world. It’s the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, and it’s ushering in a new chapter for our company,” Facebook, erm sorry Meta wrote.
During his keynote – which you can watch in full here – Zuckerberg said that Meta was set on creating the metaverse and revealed the company’s plans to make virtual and augmented reality a part of our everyday lives whether it’s social interactions, gaming, education or buying things.
Meta has set itself a goal of bringing one billion people into the VR space according to vice president of Reality Labs (formerly Facebook Reality Labs formerly AR/VR) Andrew Bosworth.
Apparently, in order to do this, Meta wants to insure you know that Oculus Quest is a Meta product so that name is changing as well.
“For this reason, we’re simplifying our brand architecture and shifting away from the Oculus brand for our hardware. Starting in early 2022, you’ll start to see the shift from Oculus Quest from Facebook to Meta Quest and Oculus App to Meta Quest App over time,” said Bosworth.
Meta says that its corporate structure is not changing but starting in Q4 of this year it will report on two operating segments namely Family of Apps and Reality Labs. The stock ticker for the firm will also be changed to MVRS on 1st December.
“Today’s announcement does not affect how we use or share data,” Meta said.
While we’re not keen on the idea of a metaverse, especially one that is controlled by Zuckerberg and his friends, the company is pushing forward on this concept and whether it will be a success will be interesting to see.
We’re not sure changing the company’s name to Meta is going to help folks forget all of the problems Facebook has caused over the years but we suppose it’s worth a shot.
