The individual services such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp keep their names, but the umbrella company is to have a new name in the future. With this, founder Zuckerberg wants to arm himself for the future.
The Facebook group is giving itself a new name and wants to develop the communication platform of the future. The Meta umbrella brand will in future be available via services such as Facebook and Instagram, as company founder Mark Zuckerberg announced.
The new company name is intended to direct the focus on the planned digital world “Metaverse”, which combines physical and virtual elements.
Successor to the mobile internet
“We believe that the” Metaverse “will be the successor to the mobile Internet,” emphasized Zuckerberg. With the new name, the group also wants to step out of the shadow of its original and so far most important platform Facebook. In addition to Instagram, the company group also includes the WhatsApp and Messenger chat apps. These individual services will keep their names.
“Today we are seen as a social media company, but at the core we are a company that connects people,” said Zuckerberg. The name Facebook was no longer able to reflect the entire range of products offered by the group.
According to the vision of the Facebook founder, the “Metaverse” is based on the one hand on virtual reality (VR), in which users with special glasses on their heads immerse themselves in digital worlds.
“Metaverse” is based on VR
The Facebook group bought the company Oculus, a pioneer in glasses for the representation of virtual reality, back in 2014. The name Oculus on the glasses is now being phased out and replaced by Meta.
The Facebook founder also sees so-called augmented reality (AR) as a “metaverse” component, in which digital content is faded into the real environment for the viewer on displays or with the help of projector glasses. According to media reports, Apple, among others, wants to bring AR glasses onto the market in the coming years.
Swipes at Apple
The Facebook founder then gave Apple a few barely concealed swipes. He introduced the name change with “One more thing” – the legendary phrase from Apple founder Steve Jobs. His criticism of stunted innovation due to limited choice and high fees is in line with complaints about Apple’s App Store. Zuckerberg hopes that his own “metaverse” will be a breakthrough: He can hope that he will no longer be dependent on Apple and Google as operators of the two major smartphone platforms.
On Thursday, Zuckerberg gave the most detailed description of his new concept to date. The “Metaverse” will be a virtual world into which one can immerse even more deeply than before, right down to the facial expressions of the people. “Instead of looking at a screen, you will be right in the middle of these experiences.”
The feeling of being there is the decisive feature of the «Metaverse», he emphasized. “If I send a video of my children to my parents, they will feel that they are with us.” At first it remained unclear with which technology beyond the VR headsets this presence effect could be achieved.
«Metaverse» worlds called «Horizon»
The group is expanding its virtual “Metaverse” worlds under the name “Horizon”. With “Horizon Home”, Zuckerberg announced a new, “more social” home for users of VR glasses. However, the area looks very similar to the start screen that users already find today. What is new is that you can use rooms and virtual objects beyond the boundaries of individual games or events.
Physical objects will be able to be scanned so that they are also present in the “Metaverse”, said the Facebook founder. In return, they will also be able to be projected into the real world as holograms. Users would use different digital avatars for work and leisure. In five to ten years, a lot of it will be part of everyday life, said Zuckerberg, who in dialogues with his employees often acted with the naturalness of an avatar himself.
The company hopes to have one billion users in the “Metaverse” by 2030 – and to convert hundreds of millions of dollars there. This year alone, the development will cost ten billion dollars.
Warning from experts
Not everyone shares the ideas. Diving into artificial worlds is the wrong way, warns the head of the «Pokémon Go» developer Niantic, John Hanke. Instead, it must be about digitally improving reality. “The real world will win,” he said of Zuckerberg’s announcement. “Because it is more relevant to us.”
On Thursday, the group announced the name change from Facebook, Inc. to Meta Platforms, Inc. with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The Facebook logo with the raised “Like” thumb in front of the headquarters has been replaced with the new curved loop from the Meta. The stock exchange abbreviation for the share is to be changed from “FB” to “MVRS” on December 1, based on the “Metaverse”.
Facebook also emphasized that the announcement did not change anything in the way the company handles data. The group had come under heavy pressure in the past few weeks from internal documents that had been made public by a former employee. Frances Haugen accuses Facebook of putting profits above the well-being of its users.
In the US Congress, which is currently targeting the tech industry, Zuckerberg’s vision was badly received. “Meta like in” we are cancer for democracy, which is metastasizing into a global surveillance and propaganda machine for authoritarian regimes “, wrote the Democratic MP Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And the influential Senator Richard Blumenthal, also a Democrat, warned the company that changing its name would not shirk its responsibility.
Ridicule on the net
The new name caused some jokes on the internet. The Wendy’s burger chain announced the change of name to Meat on Twitter. Meta’s new logo has been compared to that of a US pretzel chain.
Facebook isn’t the first Silicon Valley corporation to change its company name to signal that the company’s direction has expanded. In 2015, for example, Google put a new holding company called Alphabet over the group. The internet giant wanted to signal that it not only operates a search engine and a cloud business, but also has ambitions for driverless cars and other high-tech fields. However, almost all of Alphabet’s revenue is still generated by Google, and the bottom line is that the other companies are only posting losses. Google boss Sundar Pichai now also runs Alphabet.