American technology conglomerate Facebook has changed its name to Meta, as part of its move into virtual reality.
“The rebranding of the social media platform reflects the company’s broader ambitions related to the metaverse and away from Facebook, an identity that is closely linked to all its products,” said Co-founder and CEO Mr. Mark Zuckerberg at the company’s Connect conference.
Announcing @Meta — the Facebook company’s new name. Meta is helping to build the metaverse, a place where we’ll play and connect in 3D. Welcome to the next chapter of social connection. pic.twitter.com/ywSJPLsCoD
The new name reflects the company’s growing ambitions beyond social media. Facebook, now known as Meta, has adopted the new moniker, based on the sci-fi term metaverse, to describe its vision for working and playing in a virtual world.
As Facebook transitions to a new identity, the most “liked” thumbs up is changing to a pretzel or an infinity sign, according to the company
Mark Zuckerberg CEO – Meta
“I am proud to announce that starting today, our company is now Meta. Our mission remains the same, still about bringing people together, our apps and their brands, they’re not changing. 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.”
According to the statement, the family of apps like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, and also its Reality Labs that is building the metaverse, will now be owned by Meta. Further, Meta’s focus will be to bring the metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses.
“We hope that within the next decade, the metaverse will reach a billion people, host hundreds of billions of dollars of digital commerce, and support jobs for millions of creators and developers,” Mr. Zuckerberg added.
