At the end of October, Mark Zuckerberg announced his decision to change the name of his company. Facebook (company, not the social platform) will from now on be called Meta.
The announcement was made during Facebook Connect — the company’s AR/VR conference. Zuckerberg explained that the new name would be a better portrayal of their long-term focus. Namely, the company is working towards creating a metaverse of its own.
While the entire explanation may sound confusing to those who aren’t adept at technology, it makes perfect sense. Combining AR and VR to create a new, online universe, a.k.a. Metaverse for the users, is shaping up to be the latest trend among tech giants.
By renaming the company, Zuckerberg actually rebranded it completely, bringing Facebook down to the level of its other subsidiaries, such as Instagram. The change will be complete on December 1, when the company begins trading stock under the ticker labeled MVRS.
However, many point out that this may simply be one of the company’s drastic PR tricks to cover up for several scandals that surfaced over the last couple of months. Moderation failures, security issues, and the recent whistleblower scandal seriously damaged their already fragile reputation.
It remains to be seen if this is really the case, or Zuckerberg has serious ambitions to merge various existing technologies and create a cutting-edge experience for his users. So far, Meta seems to have already started working on concepts for different versions of its metaverse, announcing that it will hire an additional 10,000 people to work on it.
