Facebook Changes To Meta In A Rebranding Effort

• Avinandan Banerjee
• October 29, 2021

The global social media giant Facebook has altered the name of its parent company to ‘Meta’. Many believe this is an attempt from the tech giant to surpass and move away from their reputation as a social media platform that is often plagued by controversies and scandals, towards their vision for the future that is focused on developing a global community of individuals based on technology of virtual reality.

The new announcement has been revealed as the company is trying to fend off one of the worst situations it has ever been in. They are channeling their ambitions towards the ‘metaverse’, a vision that would blur the difference between the digital world and the physical one.

Billions of people around the world are using Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram on a regular basis and it has been announced that the rebranding will not affect the names of these social media applications and will get to keep them. Some of the critics have also pointed out that the rebranding of the company is an attempt to distract the public from the various dysfunctionalities of the social media platform.

Mark Zuckerberg, the Chief Executive Officer of Facebook clearly stated that they have learnt a great deal from struggling with compelling social issues and so far we have lived under platforms that were closed in nature. However, according to him, this is an attempt to put into practice everything that they have learnt so far and take the social media experience to its next stage of evolution. 

He announced that he is indeed proud to introduce Meta, which is the new name for the global social media giant. However, he also said that even though the parent company is changing names, their brands and applications remain unchanged. 

The Metaverse

The social media giant has been facing a complicated situation ever since Frances Haugen, a former employee leaked some serious documents which entailed that the executives working in Facebook were aware of some of the harming potentials of Facebook. 

However according to a report from the Washington Post states that the introduction to the virtual metaverse comes as a huge push from the company in order to rehabilitate the reputation of the social media platform in front of the policymakers and reestablish the company to position them as the pioneer of the next generation of internet technologies.

In a video message spanning more than one hour, Mark Zuckerberg had demonstrated his idea of the virtual world and he even dubbed this vision as the future that is about to unfold in front of our very eyes.

He further added that within the duration of the next decade, the Metaverse will touch billions of lives across the world, facilitating billions of dollars worth of digital commerce and business worldwide, creating job opportunities for millions of developers and creators globally. The Metaverse will transform the way we communicate with each other and conduct our daily affairs.

During the demonstration, he pointed out that in order to reach that level of the Metaverse, their company is looking to achieve significant technological breakthroughs, at least a dozen of them. Facebook recently announced that they are planning to hire around 10,000 people in the European Union for constructing the Metaverse and Mark himself would be the leading promoter of the metaverse concept.

Conclusion

The term metaverse is in fact, a part of science fiction. It was coined in 1992 by Neal Stephenson for his novel “Snow Crash” where he had portrayed a game-like future world where people interact with each other while wearing virtual reality headsets. So if you want to be a Blockchain Expert and are keen to know more about blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, check out online certifications and courses on Blockchain Council.