News of the name change came as the culmination of this year’s Facebook Connect event, following a speech by CEO Mark Zuckerberg on why the future of technology is in the so-called metaverse.
Zuckerberg wants to change the name because, apparently, The name of Facebook makes people think a lot about the social networkly does not reflect the entirety of the company’s ambitions.
«Today we are seen as a social media company. Facebook is one of the most used technology products in the history of the world. It’s an iconic social media brand »Zuckerberg writes in a letter about the Meta brand redesign. “Right now, our brand is so tied to a product that it can’t represent everything we do today, let alone the future.”
The name change didn’t take us by surprise. Not only has Facebook bought the meta.com domain, but Zuckerberg himself has been talking about the metaverse for months, a world in which people interact with each other through Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.
Zuckerberg not only unveiled the company’s new logo, but also pointed out that since meta means “beyond” in Greek, the company’s services will no longer need a Facebook account.
“The metaverse is the next evolution of social connection”, reads the Facebook Meta page. “Our company’s vision is to help bring the metaverse to life, so we’re changing our name to reflect our commitment to this future.”
Throughout his speech, Zuckerberg covered some science fiction concepts, from wristbands that can read your mind to photorealistic avatars.
He also insisted on metaversewhere people can engage in activities such as viewing NFT galleries, downloading the latest “products” and interacting with celebrity avatars.
On the hardware side, Zuckerberg also referred to “Project Cambria”, a sophisticated version of Oculus Quest 2. He also highlighted the recent release of Ray-Ban Stories, his collaboration on smart sunglasses.
He also mentioned a more advanced smart glasses design, but said we were too far away to see them as a large number of sensors and components would need to be shrunk to fit into a 5mm frame.
Of course, Zuckerberg admitted that many of the fantastic things shown in today’s talk are years, maybe even decades, away from reality.
