Facebook officially renamed as ‘Meta’ in rebranding exercise

Facebook officially renamed as ‘Meta’ in rebranding exercise, complete details here

By Sanjay Maurya

News Highlights

On 28^th October 2021, Facebook Inc has changed its name to Meta.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the new name represented the company’s efforts in investing in the metaverse.
The metaverse will reach a billion people over the next decade, and the new technology will provide millions of jobs.

Facebook Inc has changed its name to Meta, the firm said on 28^th October 2021, in a rebranding that emphasizes the creation of the “metaverse,” a shared virtual world that the company believes will succeed the mobile internet.

The name change comes as the world’s largest social media business under legislative and regulatory scrutiny over its market dominance, algorithmic judgments, and policing of abuses on its platforms. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the new name represented the company’s efforts investing in the metaverse, rather than its eponymous social networking site, which would continue to be named Facebook.

Given the firm’s family of applications, like WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as its work in virtual and augmented reality, it no longer symbolizes what the company does. “I’m delighted to disclose that our business is now Meta,” Zuckerberg said, “to represent who we are and the future we aim to build.” This implies that Meta will now hold the Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram family of applications, as well as its Reality Labs, which is constructing the metaverse.

Metaverse, according to Zuckerberg, is a “virtual environment” that you may enter instead of merely gazing at on a screen. Virtual reality headsets augmented reality glasses, smartphone applications, and other gadgets may be used to meet, work, and play. As per Victoria Petrock, an analyst who analyses developing technology, It will also include other parts of online life, such as social networking and shopping.

According to Zuckerberg, the metaverse will reach a billion people over the next decade, and the new technology will provide millions of jobs. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the charitable organization founded by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, purchased Meta, a Canadian scientific literature analysis firm, in 2017. The Facebook offices in Menlo Park, California, were repainted to resemble an infinite sign with a blue pretzel-shaped logo.

Google reorganized in 2015 to become Alphabet Inc, a new holding company as the popular search engine ventured into new industries such as self-driving vehicles, high-speed broadband, and cloud computing. In 2016, Snapchat changed its name to Snap Inc, the same year it released its first pair of smart glasses.

To provide an idea of how Metaverse might look like Zuckerberg Facebook founder also showed a demo video, with people connecting as avatars and taking to digital replicas of different locations and periods. The metaverse, he said, would have to be created with security and privacy in mind.