Facebook Changes Name to Meta as It Refocusses on Virtual Reality

Facebook is now known as Meta, the corporate mentioned on Thursday, in a rebrand that focuses on constructing the “metaverse,” a shared digital atmosphere that it bets would be the successor to the cellular web.

The title change comes because the world’s largest social media firm battles criticisms from lawmakers and regulators over its market energy, algorithmic selections and the policing of abuses on its companies.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg, talking on the firm’s live-streamed digital and augmented actuality convention, mentioned the brand new title mirrored its work investing within the metaverse, fairly than its namesake social media service, which can proceed to be known as Facebook.

The metaverse is a time period coined within the dystopian novel “Snow Crash” three a long time in the past and now attracting buzz in Silicon Valley. It refers broadly to the concept of a shared digital realm which will be accessed by individuals utilizing completely different gadgets.

“Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can’t possibly represent everything that we’re doing today, let alone in the future,” mentioned Zuckerberg.

The firm, which has invested closely in augmented and digital actuality, mentioned the change would deliver collectively its completely different apps and applied sciences underneath one new model. It mentioned it could not change its company construction.

The tech big, which experiences about 2.9 billion month-to-month customers, has confronted growing scrutiny lately from international lawmakers and regulators.

In the newest controversy, whistleblower and former Facebook worker Frances Haugen leaked paperwork which she mentioned confirmed the corporate selected revenue over person security. Haugen has in current weeks testified earlier than a US Senate subcommittee and lawmakers within the UK’s Parliament. Zuckerberg earlier this week mentioned the paperwork had been getting used to color a “false picture.”

The firm mentioned in a weblog publish that it intends to start out buying and selling underneath the brand new inventory ticker it has reserved, MVRS, on Decemeber 1. On Thursday, it unveiled a brand new signal at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, changing its thumbs-up “Like” emblem with a blue infinity form.

Facebook shares closed 1.5 % larger at $316.92 (roughly Rs. 23,700) on Thursday.

Tarnished Reputation

Facebook mentioned this week that its {hardware} division Facebook Reality Labs, which is chargeable for AR and VR efforts, would turn into a separate reporting unit and that its funding in it could scale back this yr’s whole working revenue by about $10 billion (roughly Rs. 74,795 crore).

This yr, the corporate created a product staff on this unit centered on the metaverse and it lately introduced plans to rent 10,000 staff in Europe over the following 5 years to work on the trouble.

In an interview with tech publication the Information, Zuckerberg mentioned he has not thought of stepping down as CEO, and has not thought “very seriously yet” about spinning off this unit.

The division will now be known as Reality Labs, its head Andrew “Boz” Bosworth mentioned on Thursday. The firm may also cease utilizing the Oculus branding for its VR headsets, as an alternative calling them “Meta” merchandise.

The title change, the plan for which was first reported by the Verge, is a big rebrand for Facebook, however not its first. In 2019 it launched a brand new emblem to create a distinction between the corporate and its social app.

The firm’s fame has taken a number of hits lately, together with over its dealing with of person knowledge and its policing of abuses corresponding to well being misinformation, violent rhetoric and hate speech. The US Federal Trade Commission has additionally filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging anticompetitive practices.

“While it’ll help alleviate confusion by distinguishing Facebook’s parent company from its founding app, a name change doesn’t suddenly erase the systemic issues plaguing the company,” mentioned Mike Proulx, analysis director at market analysis agency Forrester.

The plans to part out the Facebook title even from merchandise like video calling gadget Portal present the corporate is keen to forestall the unprecedented scrutiny from hurting the remainder of its apps, mentioned Prashant Malaviya, a advertising professor at Georgetown University McDonough School of Business.

“Without a doubt, (the Facebook name) is definitely damaged and toxic,” he mentioned.

Zuckerberg mentioned the brand new title, coming from the Greek phrase for “beyond,” symbolized there was at all times extra to construct. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Thursday tweeted out a distinct definition “referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential.”

Zuckerberg mentioned the brand new title additionally displays that over time, customers won’t want to make use of Facebook to make use of the corporate’s different companies.

In 2015, Google reorganized to create a brand new holding firm known as Alphabet, as the favored search engine broke into new fields corresponding to self-driving automobiles, high-speed broadband and expanded its cloud enterprise. Snapchat additionally rebranded to Snap Inc in 2016, the identical yr it launched its first pair of good glasses.

Facebook, which this yr launched its personal pair of good glasses with Ray-Ban, introduced a slew of latest AR and VR product updates throughout Connect. These included a method for individuals utilizing its Oculus VR headset to name buddies utilizing [Facebook Messenger]`(https://devices.ndtv.com/tags/messenger) and for individuals to ask others to a social model of their residence, dubbed “Horizon Home.”

Zuckerberg additionally confirmed video demos of what the metaverse might appear like, with individuals connecting as avatars and being transported to digital variations of assorted locations and time intervals. He mentioned that the metaverse would have to be constructed with security and privateness in thoughts.

© Thomson Reuters 2021