Meta: The rebranding occurred amid a crisis of leaking official company documents and aims to reinforce the Metaverse. Understand.
During the Facebook Connect 2021 event held in October last year, Facebook announced the name change to Meta. A reference to the next chapter of the Internet: the Metaverse.
The app and the facebook.com address continue to exist with the same name; what changed was the group’s name that manages several products and services, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the company and founder of Facebook, explained that “the word Meta comes from the Greek word meaning ‘beyond.’ For me, it symbolizes that there is always something more to build on. There is always a new chapter to a story. For us, it’s a story that started in a dorm and grew beyond anything we could have imagined.”
According to him, the idea is to dissociate the company from the social network Facebook and focus on the Metaverse:
“Right now, our brand is so closely tied to a product that it can’t represent everything we’re doing today. Over time, I hope we will be seen as a metaverse company. I want to anchor our identity in what we are building”.
The CEO also informed that, from now on, all the company’s products, including apps, will work to bring the Metaverse to life. The change, however, does not affect the way companies share data.
But What Is Really Behind The Change?
Despite the vision for the future, Meta is going through the call of rebranding. In other words, the formation of a new identity, to try to get out of the focus of the controversies and denunciations involving Facebook. The company, which has dealt with scandals over data privacy and content moderation, faces public relations issues and investigations by the US Congress.
The case is known as the “Facebook Papers.” It consists of a leak of confidential documents from Zuckerberg’s company made by Frances Haugen, its former integrity manager, which revealed dubious internal policies. Some experts believe that the rebranding attempts to create a “smokescreen” over recent problems in this scenario.
New Logo
The rebranding involved not only changing the name but also a new logo. The logo is marked using the modern letter “M” in gradient blue and is designed to be experienced in 3D. The idea is for the icon to “come to life in the metaverse” so that users can move through and around the logo in the virtual universe.
But What Is The Metaverse?
The Metaverse is an immersive, collective, and hyper-realistic virtual environment where people can interact with each other through customized 3D avatars. This world will be created from various technologies, such as virtual reality, augmented reality (AR), social networks, cryptocurrencies, etc.
Still confused? Maybe it will be easier if we think about the Internet today. Currently, social networks are the primary mediators of the virtual environment. And “digital life” is accessed with cell phones and computers. In the Metaverse, people will experience the digital universe when using glasses with augmented reality.
“You’ll be able to do just about anything you can imagine—gathering with friends and family, working, learning, playing, shopping, creating—and completely new experiences that don’t fit how we think about computers. Phones today,” explained Mark Zuckerberg.
However, for this scenario to be possible, many technologies need to be improved and developed. Therefore, during Facebook Connect 2021, Meta demonstrated to the public what the company is preparing for the future.
Building The Metaverse
One of the starting points for the Metaverse design is Spark AR, an augmented reality effects platform. In addition to it, the company hopes to evolve the AR glasses offering in the future. In September 2021, Meta presented its smart glasses in partnership with the manufacturer Ray-Ban.
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