Facebook, the social networking site that has been around since 2004, is changing its name to Meta. The move comes as the company looks to stay ahead of competitors like Google and LinkedIn. Meta is a word that stands for “meta data,” which is information about a website or an individual’s online presence. Facebook says that the name will help it stand out from other social networking sites and make it easier for users to find information about themselves. The change comes as Facebook tries to compete with Google and LinkedIn, which have become more popular in recent years. Meta also makes sense given Facebook’s focus on user experience and its desire to be more open and transparent than its competitors.
With this Meta name and brand, Facebook won’t be required to use the metaverse tools and ideas that Mark Zuckerberg and the company have. “Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product,” he said. “But over time, I hope we are seen as a metaverse company,” Zuckerberg said during his presentation.
“To reflect who we are and the future we hope to build, I’m proud to share that our company is now Meta,” Zuckerberg explained.
Zuckerberg also wrote a blog post explaining a little more about what the name change means for Facebook, and it sounds like the corporate structure won’t change, but the way the company reports earnings will.
At the event, which you can watch above, Mark Zuckerberg spent over an hour talking about all things metaverse and how it will shape the future. It sounds like Meta doesn’t want to control the metaverse, but instead, just be a foundational part of it. “Our role in this journey is to accelerate the development of the fundamental technologies, social platforms, and creative tools to bring the metaverse to life, and to weave these technologies through our social media apps,” said Zuckerberg in a blog post.
It sounds like Facebook as a social media site will still exist as part of Meta’s offerings, but it won’t be the company’s main focus. “From now on, we will be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first,” said Zuckerberg.
The company provided a few details about the future of VR and AR, including very limited sneak peeks at a future headset and its codename.
The new VR headset, which Meta is calling Project Cambria, will sit on the higher end of the price spectrum and feature specs to match. This is probably the Oculus Pro we heard rumors of recently, but we’ll have to wait until more details are announced about the headset before we know for sure. It’s scheduled to release in 2022, so we should learn more shortly.
The team at Meta also talked about a new AR device called Project Azeray. It sounds like this is quite a bit further out, but it promises to bring real AR experiences to incredible thin lenses.
