Finally, after days of rumours, Mark Zuckerberg has announced Facebook is changing its name to Meta.
Zuckerberg made the announcement at the tech company’s yearly Connect conference. Basically, Zuckerberg’s parent company will be known as Meta, but Facebook the social media network will keep its name, as well as Instagram and Whatsapp.
Meta will act as the parent company for all of Zuckerberg’s offshoots, which is particularly interesting as he announced that he will be focusing on a virtual reality future – to make technology more real than ever.
Zuckerberg also debuted a new logo, that is more simplistic but uses Facebook’s signature blue.
Zuckerberg said: “We are now looking at and reporting on our business as two different segments, one for our family of apps and one for our work on future platforms.”
To put it simply, the rumours are true and Zuckerberg plans to focus on creating a metaverse, The Guardian reported that the ever-ambitious Zuckerberg also declared that he expects his metaverse to reach over a billion users in ten years.
Meta will focus on creating AR products for users, that will aim to feel like real life – instead of inviting your mates for dinner, in the future, you may invite them to hang out in one of Zuckerberg’s AR spaces. Basically, Zuckerberg wants to create a new reality.
According to The Guardian, Zuckerberg said: “We believe the metaverse will be the successor of the mobile internet.
“We’ll be able to feel present! Like we’re right there with people no matter how far apart we actually are.”
Of course, all AR excitement aside, rebranding arguably the most well-known tech company in the world and it’s still a bold move to suddenly rename it. Though according to The Verge, Zuckerberg saw it as a move that will eliminate confusion and allow for him to grow his tech company.
The Verge reported that Zuckerberg said: “I think that there was just a lot of confusion and awkwardness about having the company brand be also the brand of one of the social media apps.
“I think it’s helpful for people to have a relationship with a company that is different from the relationship with any specific one of the products, that can kind of supersede all of that.”
