Facebook Inc. will now be called Meta Platforms Inc. after CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg announced a corporate rebranding at Connect 2021, the company’s annual conference on virtual and augmented reality, on Thursday.
The name change comes in the middle of a severe crisis as the company deals with the fallout from the Facebook Papers, published by the Wall Street Journal and damning testimony of a whistle-blower. While many experts felt it was a typical response by a company in trouble, the company said the rebranding was almost six months in the making, but known to a very small group of people working closely with Zuckerberg and sworn to secrecy.
As an app, Facebook will retain its name, as will Instagram and WhatsApp. However, Zuckerberg said the broader company will focus on the ‘metaverse’, a virtual computer-generated space where people can interact instead of just look at the screen. People can meet, work and play, using virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphone apps or other devices.
From December 1, the stock will start trading under a new ticker symbol, MVRS.
“The current 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,” Zuckerberg said in a company blog post. “Over time, I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company and I want to anchor our work and our identity on what we’re building towards.”
Zuckerberg said that he expects the metaverse to reach a billion people within the next decade and that he hopes the new technology will creates millions of jobs for creators.
“In recent decades, technology has given people the power to connect and express ourselves more naturally. When I started Facebook, we mostly typed text on websites. When we got phones with cameras, the internet became more visual and mobile,” Zuckerberg added.
“As connections got faster, video became a richer way to share experiences. We’ve gone from desktop to web to mobile; from text to photos to video. But this isn’t the end of the line.
“The next platform will be even more immersive — an embodied internet where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it. We call this the metaverse, and it will touch every product we build.
“The defining quality of the metaverse will be a feeling of presence — like you are right there with another person or in another place. Feeling truly present with another person is the ultimate dream of social technology. That is why we are focused on building this.
“In the metaverse, you’ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine — get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create — as well as completely new experiences that don’t really fit how we think about computers or phones today.”
Zuckerberg said the rebranding also brings a new vision to the company.
“Our mission remains the same — it’s still about bringing people together. Our apps and their brands aren’t changing either. We’re still the company that designs technology around people,” he added.
“But all of our products, including our apps, now share a new vision: to help bring the metaverse to life. And now we have a name that reflects the breadth of what we do. From now on, we will be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first.
“I used to study Classics, and the word “meta” comes from the Greek word meaning “beyond”. For me, it symbolises that there is always more to build, and there is always a next chapter to the story.”
