FACEBOOK Now META | Why Did Facebook Change The Name Of The Company?

Facebook has finally announced the renaming of its company, which is being touted as a step towards changing its identity as a social media company.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the name change at the annual Connect conference yesterday and said that the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram has now been renamed META.

Why did Facebook change its name?

Question Of The Year: why did Facebook need to change its name and what is Metavers?

Zuckerberg called the Metavers a "virtual universe" that you can go into instead of just looking at the screen. Basically, it's a world of endless, interconnected virtual communities where people can meet, work and play using virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphone apps or other devices.

It will also cover other aspects of online life, such as shopping and social media, according to Victoria Petrock, an analyst who follows emerging technologies.

We're not going to be the first Facebook, we're going to be the first meteors: Mark Zuckerberg

In his 75-minute online presentation, Mark Zuckerberg said that the company wants to focus on modern computing, now we are going to be the 'first metavers', not Facebook.

Last year, Facebook set up a special Metavers team, most recently announcing the promotion of AR and VR chief Andrew Boseworth to chief technology officer.

Facebook already has more than 10,000 employees working on hardware such as AR Glasses, which Mark Zuckerberg thinks will eventually be everywhere, like smartphones.

Just a few weeks ago, Facebook announced the hiring of 10,000 more employees to work on Metavers in Europe.

"Facebook is one of the most used products in the world, but increasingly, it doesn't include everything we do," Zuckerberg said in Connecticut. Right now, our brand is so closely tied to a product that it can't possibly represent everything we do.

Facebook files

The move comes at a time when Facebook is embroiled in allegations that it did not take the real-world damage from its platforms seriously, despite being notified by its employees. Ignore them. 

The American Wall Street Journal has launched a series of reviews of Facebook's internal documents called Facebook Files.

The magazine's series includes reviews of Facebook's internal documents, including research reports , online employee discussions, and drafts of presentations to senior management.

The magazine says that Facebook knows in great detail that its platform is full of flaws that are causing damage in various ways and often in ways that only the company can fully understand.

Critics have criticized the move, calling it a ploy to end the current crisis. US Democratic lawyer Mark Elias has compared it to the crisis facing cigarette seller Philip Morris. He wrote in his tweet that don't forget that when Philip Morris Company changed its name to Ultria, it was still selling cancer-causing cigarettes.

Katie Harbath, the founding CEO of consultancy Anchorchange and former Facebook public policy director, says she was wondering during Zuckerberg's announcement who the police would be in Metawors. "The first few years can be great because there won't be a lot of people on the service, but as more people come in, so will the bad characters."

"Almost every five years, Facebook announces a major shift in the direction between the 'press cycle,'" Harbarth told the Washington Post. Currently, the name change of Facebook seems desirable.

Is Metavers just a Facebook project?

No, other companies talking about Metavers include Microsoft and chip maker Nvidia.

"We think Metavers will have a lot of companies creating virtual worlds and environments, just like a lot of companies working on the World Wide Web (www)," said Richard Carris, vice president of Invidia's Omniverse platform.