Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the Social media giant will now be known as Meta.
Zuckerberg made the announcement at the company’s annual Connect conference held on Thursday, October 28, 2021.
The new name reflects the company’s focus on building the metaverse, something CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke extensively about during the event.
The rebrand positions the blue Facebook app as one of many products under a parent or holding company overseeing groups like Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, and more.
“The metaverse is the next frontier. From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, and not Facebook-first,” Zuckerberg said.
“I’m proud of what we’ve built so far, and I’m excited about what comes next — as we move beyond what’s possible today, beyond the constraints of screens, beyond the limits of distance and physics, and towards a future where everyone can be present with each other, create new opportunities and experience new things.
“It is a future that is beyond anyone company and that will be made by all of us,” he added.
Zuckerberg said he expects the metaverse to reach a billion people within the next decade.
“Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can’t possibly represent everything that we’re doing today, let alone in the future. Over time, I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company, and I want to anchor our work and identity on what we’re building toward,” he said.
Back in July, Zuckerberg said Facebook’s future lies in ‘metaverse’.
The metaverse, according to him, will be a place people will be able to interact, work and create products and content in what he hopes will be a new ecosystem that creates millions of jobs for creators across the globe.
Last week, the company also announced plans to create 10,000 jobs in the European Union over the next five years to help build the metaverse.
This investment, the company said in a statement, is a vote of confidence in the strength of the European tech industry and the potential of European tech talent.
By creating a greater sense of “virtual presence,” Facebook (Now Meta) says interacting online can become much closer to the experience of interacting in person.
The metaverse, it says, has the potential to help unlock access to new creative, social and economic opportunities.
Last month Facebook also announced a $50 million investment in global research and program partners for the development of metaverse.
