The company, not the social network
Facebook held its Connect 2021 keynote today, a company-wide conference originally dedicated to its Oculus-branded VR branch. In addition to announcing a whole slew of VR-focused products, Mark Zuckerberg finally revealed a previously-rumored rebrand to his business, changing its name to “Meta.”
We’ve known this switch was coming since The Verge leaked a pending announcement last week, set to arrive by the end of October. Although some reports initially reported the news as a rebrand for the social network, this is more in line with Google’s evolution into Alphabet — a way to keep a specific set of products separate from the rest of the business. In that sense, Facebook (the service) will become another platform alongside Instagram and Whatsapp, rather than the name of the company at large.
As a brand, “Meta” shouldn’t be too surprising to anyone who’s paid attention to Zuckerberg’s comments on where he sees technology evolving. With the acquisition of Oculus, Facebook has focused on building up its VR-focused products, especially concerning the “metaverse,” which it calls a “successor to the mobile internet.” If you’ve seen Ready Player One, that’s basically what Meta is envisioning for its future — except, you know, hopefully without the matching dystopian hellscape.
For end-users, nothing is really changing. Facebook will continue to be Facebook, with all of the good and bad that goes along with it. Much like when Alphabet burst onto the scene in 2015, Meta will be a name discussed throughout the industry and within financial reports — it’s already announced a new MVRS stock ticker to go into effect on December 1st. That said, don’t expect any significant changes to the day-to-day operation — or the ever-growing controversy — of the world’s largest social network.
But hey, if the promise of a “set of interconnected digital spaces” has you excited, it certainly sounds like that’s Facebook’s Meta’s priority from here on out.
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