It’s official: Facebook has a new name, and Meta is the company that now brings together the social network Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram and Oculus. The appointment happened this Thursday afternoon during the event, a change that tries to unify his brand as a brand and Mark himself presented to the world his new vision of the future of the internet, in which to “connect the world”.
Meta will host all of Zuckerberg’s platforms showcasing the company’s evolutionary approach
“From now on, Facebook will be prioritized, not Facebook. That means that over time you won’t need a Facebook account to use our other services. As our new branding begins to appear on our products, I hope that people around the world will recognize the Meta brand and the future we represent.”, Zuckerberg assured in a letter addressed to the employees of his company.
Zuckerberg would have made a much better Bond villain than Rami Malek
— Conor Gogarty (@ConorGogarty)
For now Facebook like all other apps and Zuckerberg will remain unchanged, but Meta will be displayed as the company title, which encompasses a broader word with which you expect house its evolving approach to the next generation of digital connection.
According to Zuckerberg the “The metaverse will be like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded in three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will allow you to share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together and do things together that you couldn’t do in the physical world. It is the next evolution in a long line of social technologies and it is ushering in a new chapter for our company.”
During his presentation at the event, which you can see in the following video, Zuckerberg presented a new series of social concepts that will be present in the metaverse as a way of preparing ourselves for how the world will be perceived through its virtual reality. For example, sending your holographic image to a concert, playing immersive games with friends, and new avatars capable of “naturally” focusing.
After the event, Zuckerberg with his plans for the next years of development of the metaverse:
“In the metaverse, you will be able to do almost anything you can imagine: meet with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create, as well as completely new experiences that don’t really fit the way we think. computers or phones today.
In this future, you can instantly teleport like a hologram to be in the office without having to movee, at a concert with friends or in your parents’ living room to catch up. This will open up more opportunities no matter where you live. You can spend more time on what matters to you, reduce time in traffic and reduce your carbon footprint.
Think about how many physical things you have today that could be holograms in the future. Your TV, your perfect multi-monitor work setup, your board games and more; instead of physical things assembled in factories, they will be holograms designed by creators from around the world.
You will go through these experiences on different devices: augmented reality glasses to be present in the physical world, virtual reality to fully immerse yourself, and phones and computers to jump from existing platforms.. It’s not about spending more time on screens; it’s about improving the time we’ve already spent”.
Meta will also release new gadgets and tools to help build the metaverse, such as the evolution of the platform, with integrations for apps like Dropbox, Slack or Canva, as well as the development platform presencewhich will enable the next generation of mixed reality experiences on its Quest 2 virtual reality headset. It also announced a $150 million investment in immersive learning to train the next generation of creators.
“Your devices will no longer be the focal point of your attention”assured the CEO of Meta. “We are starting to see a lot of these technologies come to fruition in the next five to 10 years. A lot of this will be mainstream and many of us will create and inhabit worlds that are as detailed and compelling as this one, on a daily basis«.
As Zuckerberg announced, while Facebook’s broad business structure will now come under the Meta brand, the company will separate its operational streams into two segments:
- Application Familywith Facebook, the social network that we have always known, being the main one, along with Instagram, Whatsapp, Messenger.
- Reality Labs, that covers its virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, in addition to other technological bets that are in evolution.
Facebook will also change its stock ticker from FB to MVRS on December 1st.
Facebook needs a fresh start
The main reading that the change from Facebook to Meta leaves us is that the company needs a fresh startwhile the complete restructuring also offers Zuckerberg the opportunity to distance himself from Facebook and realign his name with the concept of the evolving metaverse.
Maybe in a positive projection, this approach manages to reframe the company as a new world to discover, with a vision for the future, unlike Facebook whose reputation is increasingly affected due to the ones in which it has been involved.
Of course these controversies won’t magically subside in the face of the name change, but it could allow Meta to reposition its momentum into the metaverse, something completely new and separate from the long list of problems the company has had and ideally, built with security in mind, if Facebook has managed to learn from its past mistakes.
What is certain is that changing the name to Meta will help Facebook to appropriate the space of the metaverse, ensuring optimal relevance for your brand, and we will have to wait for its evolution to know if it manages to permeate the next generation of digital consumers. The resources are there, but there will also be several challenges for the metaverse to develop into a reality, both virtual and material for Zuckerberg’s company.
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