Facebook has rebranded itself with a new identity – Meta. Drawing its name from the metaverse, a speculative future internet iteration based on shared 3-Dimensional virtual spaces, Meta is a social technology company. Meta’s renewed focus, as was iterated by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is to bring the “metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses.”
The metaverse will resemble a mix of today’s online social interactions, allowing you to share immersive experiences with others even though you’re not physically present – and accomplish things together virtually. Although Meta’s vision appears ambitious, the gaming industry’s use of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) has brought this future closer than you may think. As part of Facebook’s efforts to develop a Metaverse, the tech giant has planned to generate 10,000 new high-skilled positions in Europe over the next five years.
Facebook’s move to change its name to “Meta” could be far more subtle than you might think. In this article, I examine three factors that may have prompted the company’s rebrand.
To begin with, Facebook, a technology conglomerate mired in controversies – from the Cambridge Analytica scandal to anti-competitive practices, to multiple legislative and regulatory scrutiny, to the recent admission by a Facebook employee-turned-whistleblower to internal warnings of harmful consequences of its social network algorithm – (desperately) needed a new face to project itself. The new name will give Facebook a renewed purpose, allowing it to continue as a social, technological giant.
Second, WhatsApp and Instagram have occupied most of the world’s tech space, reducing Facebook’s popularity. Also, the name “Facebook” didn’t fit those social networking products. As a result, Facebook needed to rebrand its name to Meta. In explaining the makeover, Mr Zuckerberg admits that the name “Facebook” no longer encapsulated “everything we do.” Facebook now owns Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Oculus, and Portal smart devices, whose popularity has surpassed what Facebook once represented: to connect people.
Finally, under the new name Meta, it will operate as a shadow government for its products. It is not subjected to the wrath of each product’s vulnerabilities or the controversies and regulatory standards surrounding them. Meta allows it to acquire new technology firms without proving that it is a competition.
Meta will now devote his efforts to making the fictitious world into a reality. On the other hand, a corporate rebranding will not address the various structural challenges that Facebook has faced over the years. These challenges are just too many to list and are unlikely to find their way into the metaverse from reality. Also, it will take some time for people to get used to referring to Facebook as Meta. However, the rebranding will offer the technology giant some breathing room.
Cover Photo: Facebook, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons