Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the company is changing its corporate name to Meta in a rebrand that focuses on virtual and augmented reality.
“Metaverse”: The company’s stock ticker symbol will change from FB to MVRS on Dec. 1, but the Facebook app’s name — as well as Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger — are here to stay.
- “Today, we’re seen as a social media company. But in our DNA, we were a company that builds technology to connect people, and the metaverse is the next frontier, just like social networking was when we got started,” Zuckerberg said at the Connect 2021 event on Thursday.
- “From now on, we’re going to be metaverse first, not Facebook first. That means that over time, you won’t need to use Facebook to use our other services as our new brand start showing up in our products. I hope that people come to know the Meta brand and the future that we stand for.”
- Zuckerberg explained that rebranding was necessary because Facebook was “so tightly linked to one product that it can’t possibly represent everything that we’re doing today, let alone in the future.”
- “But over time, I hope we are seen as a metaverse company,” Zuckerberg added. “It is time for us to adopt a new company brand to encompass everything that we do, to reflect who we are and what we hope to build.”
- It also plans to hire 10,000 employees in Europe over the next five years.
- Zuckerberg said the metaverse is expected to reach a billion people over the next decade and bring in billions of dollars in digital commerce.
- The company will also focus on privacy and safety as it builds the metaverse.
- “Privacy standards will be built into the metaverse from Day 1,” Zuckerberg said. “One of the lessons I’ve internalized from the last five years is we need to emphasize these principles from the start.”
Reactions: Facebook officially set its Twitter account to private and transferred its content to the Meta account. But social media users were quick to give their thoughts on the rebranding.
So Facebook changed its name to Meta.
Mark Zuckerberg could call that shit Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and it wouldn’t change the fact that he’s a billionaire asshole selling personal data, spreading misinformation and pushing propaganda. pic.twitter.com/GCtwweUkg2
— ClockOutWars (@clockoutwars) October 28, 2021
Meta? LMAOOO the aunties are about to mass delete Facebook and call it devil worship. 💀😭 https://t.co/De6dagD38Y
— Daric C., M.A. (he/him/Él) (@DaricCott) October 28, 2021
Zuck has a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s on the bookshelf as he announces Facebook’s rebrand to Meta
If this isn’t proof we are in a simulation idk what is pic.twitter.com/u8yrwUKDvw
— MYSTIC7 (@MYSTIC7) October 28, 2021
Our parents about to be like “My Facebook says meta ,how do I change it back.” pic.twitter.com/lVzysJPXFU
— chun swae. (@girl_kaybee) October 28, 2021
— Gabriel Gonzalez (@gyzo33) October 28, 2021
— Cal MacLellan (@calmaclellan) October 28, 2021
Featured Image via CNET Highlights
