Mark Zuckerberg announced today that Facebook would be changing its name to Meta, in a bid to better describe the company’s new vision for itself.
Over the last year or so, Facebook – sorry, Meta – has been developing more ‘metaverse’ products that, while not fully released to the public, have been actively shown.
A demo of their conference app was shown with eerie avatars of Zuckerberg and his staff, all done in VR, which the company has begun ramping up development of to try and remove the hardware limitations, as well as the excessive costs that keep the product out people’s hands.
Oculus, which was bought by Meta in 2014 for $2 billion and is partly headed by industry legend, John Carmack (DOOM, Quake).
In his blog post about the change, Zuckerberg also pointed out that the company would now be reporting their business under two different categories:
“We’re now looking at and reporting on our business as two different segments: one for our family of apps and one for our work on future platforms.”
He also elaborated a little on the need for a change:
“The metaverse encompasses both the social experiences and future technology. As we broaden our vision, it’s time for us to adopt a new brand.”
“To reflect who we are and the future we hope to build, I’m proud to share that our company is now Meta.”
Meta, Inc. has now been made official and Zuckerberg also owns the social media names, as well as the URL.
Meta is still under heavy scrutiny following leaks dubbed the “Facebook Papers”, which details how the company manipulates elections, as well as the company’s other scandals.
