By Aduragbemi Omiyale
In order to broaden its vision and position itself for the future, Facebook has announced changing its parent company’s name to Meta, though it said the brand names of its apps will remain the same.
With this development, the name of the four major applications owned by the organisation, Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, will remain the same.
In a post on Thursday, the CEO of Meta, Mr Mark Zuckerberg, described Meta as “the next chapter of social connection” and that it would help “to build the metaverse, a place where we’ll play and connect in 3D.”
According to him, metaverse will be a place people will be able to interact, work and create products and content, expressing optimism that it would reach a billion people within the next decade.
“In the metaverse, you’ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine; get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create as well as completely new experiences that don’t really fit how we think about computers or phones today.”
He further explained that “the defining quality of the metaverse will be a feeling of presence like you are right there with another person or in another place.”
“Feeling truly present with another person is the ultimate dream of social technology. That is why we are focused on building this,” Mr Zuckerberg added.
He further stated that “metaverse will not be created by one company. It will be built by creators and developers making new experiences and digital items that are interoperable and unlock a massively larger creative economy than the one constrained by today’s platforms and their policies.
“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.
“We believe the metaverse can enable better social experiences than anything that exists today, and we will dedicate our energy to helping achieve its potential.”
However, he assured that, “Our mission remains the same, it’s still about bringing people together. Our apps and their brands aren’t changing either. We’re still the company that designs technology around people.
“But all of our products, including our apps, now share a new vision: to help bring the metaverse to life. And now we have a name that reflects the breadth of what we do.
“From now on, we will be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first. That means that over time you won’t need a Facebook account to use our other services. As our new brand starts showing up in our products, I hope people around the world come to know the Meta brand and the future we stand for.”
Business Post reports that the change of name from Facebook to Meta is coming at a time the company is facing backlash from a leaked document trove termed Facebook Papers that has revealed the ways the firm ignored internal reports and warnings of the harms its social network created or magnified across the world.
