Facebook declared on 28th October 2021 (Thursday) that it has altered its firm’s name to Meta. The name alteration was declared at the Facebook Connect virtual reality conference.
The new name – Meta, resonates with the firm’s maturing goals that go beyond the regular ideology behind social media. Facebook, now dubbed as Meta, has assumed the new nickname based out on the sci-fi terminology – metaverse, to portray its vision for playing and working in virtual reality.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that the social media firm was witnessed as a social networking pioneer owing to its fundamental base as a technology that connected people. He said that the metaverse will be the next front for the company, just like social networking was when the firm began operating in its budding days.
Like Google created its parent company, Alphabet Inc in 2015; Meta will house the array of social media platforms led by Mark Zuckerburg, Facebook included.
Facebook’s new moniker – Meta
Facebook takes its name back to the firm’s origin when Mark Zuckerberg was just a student at Harvard University. Back then, Zuckerberg named the initial version of the social media website after the terminology for the student directories. On Thursday, at the Facebook Connect augmented reality conference, he recollected his love for the classics and explained how ‘meta’ was derived from the Greek word that meant ‘beyond’.
Facebook also mentioned that in declaring and altering its new name, it will transform its stock symbol from FB to MVRS, effective from December 1st 2021.
The firm’s stock rates closed above on 28th October 2021.
In July 2021, the firm declared the creation of a team that would closely work on the metaverse. After two months, in September, the firm stated that it would upgrade Andrew Bosworth (current Head of Facebook’s hardware division) to the role of Chief Technology Officer in 2022. As per the firm’s Q3 results declared on 25th October 2021, the firm revealed that it will dismantle Reality Labs (the hardware division of Facebook), into its reporting division, commencing in Q4 of 2021.
Zuckerberg indicated in a letter on Thursday that the firm hoped that within the next 10 years, Meta would be accessible to over a billion people, host several billions of dollars of digital commerce, and create jobs for millions of developers and creators.
Over the past several years, the firm has enhanced its proceedings in hardware, releasing the Ray-Ban Stories glasses, facilitating induction of Portal video-calling devices, and delivering several versions of the Oculus virtual-reality headsets. The firm has portrayed that virtual and augmented reality will be a principal faction of its strategy shortly.
Meta also stated that this week, it would expend around USD 10 billion (over the next year) in enhancing the technologies obligatory to the development of the metaverse.
Zuckerberg on Thursday revealed a demo of the firm’s metaverse ambitions.
The demonstration was an animation similar to the Pixar software that the firm is seeking to create and fabricate someday. The demonstration was inclusive of consumers chilling in space as cartoon and fantastical characters and versions of themselves, like a robot that represented their virtual being.
Zuckerberg stated that the full realization of the metaverse is still a long way off. He estimates the endeavour to etch into mainstream media in the span of 5 to 10 years. The firm is estimated to expend billions of dollars for several years to come before the metaverse reaches its maximum potential, he added.
Zuckerberg expects the metaverse to emerge as the successor of the mobile internet.
Furthermore, Meta declared a new-fangled virtual reality headphone dubbed Project Cambria. The electronic device will be an elite product available at a price that is higher than the USD 299 Quest 2 headphones, the firm indicated in its blog post. Zuckerberg stated that Project Cambria will be released in 2021.
The rebranding of Facebook arrives at an expedient timing for the firm. The firm witnessed constant backlash owing to a whistleblower that revealed an array of documents to government and media bodies that detailed the slip-ups that the firm has committed over the years, in privacy concerns that are associated with its platform. Facebook has been arranging the foundation for this transformation for months, to shift the media framing of negative headlines around its most popular product.
