Yes, you have heard it right, Facebook officially rebrand their name to Meta. Mark Zuckerberg has a new job title for the first time in 17 years. Meta is the new parent company name for a well-known app; Facebook. This rebranding is all about creating a metaverse but critics say otherwise. So, why did Facebook change its name to Meta? Let us show you the truth behind this act.
Will my Facebook app change its name to Meta?
No, only the Facebook company has changed its name to Meta. Social networking app will still work with the name; Facebook. It has a new logo. According to the company’s statement, they changed the name to bring the company’s apps and technologies under one new company brand. Facebook has bought Instagram and Whatsapp since its launch in 2004. It also invested in other technologies as well. You might have heard it a lot these days; We want to bring the Metaverse to life. According to critics, it is just a way of shifting people’s focus from recent controversies.
What really happened?
Mark Zuckerberg just became the official CEO and chairman of Meta, the new name for Facebook. Mark sees this change as the future of the internet. According to Mark, “ I think we’re basically moving from being Facebook first as a company to being Metaverse first. The change is all about recognizing a shift inside the company that has already taken place. Mark Zuckerberg has been spending about $10 billion this year to build the Metaverse. On the 28th of October, Facebook changed its name to Meta. The CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: “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. Over time, I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company, and I want to anchor our work and identity on what we’re building toward”. We have heard the word “Metaverse” several times, but what does it really mean?
What is the Metaverse?
Metaverse is a virtual world where you can plug yourself into and do almost anything (According to theory). According to Mark Zuckerberg, the metaverse would be a place where people could interact, create, and work with each other and he expects it to reach a billion people in the upcoming decades. He does not think of it as a profitable investment and does not want to make any money from it. According to us, Metaverse is the future of the internet. This name echos the key product that Mark Zuckerberg wants to offer; the Metaverse. It is the name for a shared 3D online virtual space that a number of companies are interested in for the future of the internet. In a letter announcing the rebranding of Facebook to Meta, Mark Zuckerberg wrote; “In this future, you will be able to teleport instantly as a hologram to be at the office without a commute, at a concert with friends, or in your parent’s living room to catch up,”.
What does Meta mean?
The simplest meaning of meta would be “beyond”. In pop culture, it means to describe when something is being self-aware. For example, metalanguage ( a language used to describe another language) and metamorphosis ( a change of form ). We have seen in TV shows and movies that break the fourth wall by doing something that knows that audience is watching. The best example for meta would be the comedy series community. More than 3 billion people use Facebook products worldwide and it has changed its name to Meta, so get ready for a lot of confusion in the coming time.
Why has Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook?
First of all, Mark Zuckerberg is not changing the name of Facebook from social media platforms. He has only changed the name of his company. “My suspicion is that this is about owning the operating system of the future, and Facebook’s experience of being an app on other people’s – rivals’ – operating systems,” says Anupam Chander at Georgetown University Law Centre in Washington, DC. “They don’t want to be prisoners on other people’s platforms. They want others to be prisoners on their platform.”
Although, Meta made Slanted references to Apple in its announcement. It said that it wanted to avoid one company restricting what you can do and charge high fees, but Max Van Kleek says that Meta will wield control over its metaverse. He says “Is Meta going to simply provide the tools rather than be the gatekeeper? I doubt that they would relinquish anything that might compromise their position as the definitive advertisement provider of the metaverse, for instance”
Do recent leaks have a role in the rebranding of Facebook?
Mark Zuckerberg said: “I think that there was just a lot of confusion and awkwardness about having the company brand be also the brand of one of the social media apps,” he said. “I think it’s helpful for people to have a relationship with a company that is different from the relationship with any specific one of the products, that can kind of supersede all of that.”
He knows that he changed his company at a suspicious time. People have criticized Facebook a lot in the past few weeks, thanks to the former Facebook employee named Frances Haugen who leaked internal documents of Facebook.
But according to Mark Zuckerberg, that news had nothing to do with the rebranding. Most people might think it has a connection, but Zuckerberg thinks it is ridiculous that Facebook officially rebrand their name to Meta because of the leaks.