Facebook is now Meta , the company said on Thursday, focusing on building a "metaverse". Metaverse is a shared virtual environme...
Facebook is now Meta, the company said on Thursday, focusing on building a "metaverse". Metaverse is a shared virtual environment that it bets will be the successor to the mobile internet.
The name change comes as the world's largest social media platform fights criticism of lawmakers and regulators for its market power, algorithmic decisions and policing the bad use of its resources.
Mark Zuckerberg, speaking at a live broadcast of real estate and Augmented reality company, said the new name reflected his investment in metaverse, not its social media service, which will continue to be called Facebook.
"Right now, our product is so connected to one product that it can't represent everything we do today, let alone the future," Zuckerberg said.
The company, which has invested heavily in Augmented and virtual reality, said the change will integrate its various applications and technologies under one new product. It has said it will not change its corporate structure.
The tech giant, which reports about 2.9 billion users every month, has faced growing scan in recent years for the lawmakers and regulators of the world.
The company says on its blog post that it intends to start trading under its new stock holder, MVRS, on December 1. On Thursday, it unveiled a new brand at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, instead of taking its thumb. "Like" a logo with an endless blue pattern.
Facebook said this week that its hardware component Facebook Reality Labs, which focuses on AR and VR efforts, will be a separate reporting unit and its investment in it will reduce this year's operating revenue by about 10 billion (about Rs .77,795 crore).
This year, the company has created a product team in the metaverse-focusing unit and recently announced plans to hire about 10,000 employees in Europe over the next five years to work in this effort.
Zuckerberg said the new word, derived from a Greek word meaning "beyond," symbolizes that there is always more to build. Zuckerberg also said the new name also indicates that over time users will not need to use Facebook to use other company resources.
Zuckerberg also showed video demos on what the metaverse might look like, with people connected as avatars and distributed in digital versions of different places and times. He said the metaverse would need to be built with regard to security and privacy.
No comments