Facebook changes its name to Meta, with a new logo – Numerama

Facebook is now called Meta: a new name to correspond to what Mark Zuckerberg calls the “metaverse”, an internet of the future where we would evolve in 3D.

Don’t call it Facebook anymore: it’s now Meta. The parent company of the social network Facebook announced its name change on October 28, 2021, during an event called Facebook Connect, dedicated to the future giant project of Mark Zuckerberg, the metaverse. ” Over time, I wish we were seen as a metaverse company », Underlined the CEO. ” We will now think of the metaverse first, and not of Facebook first. “

Before the official announcement, the logo and the name of the group had fled online: it’s called Meta (for metaverse), with an icon on the border between augmented and virtual reality glasses and an infinite symbol.

The new Meta group includes several different companies and apps, including Facebook (the social network), Messenger, Instagram, Oculus and Portal.

Facebook has suffered a lot of criticism

The decision to change your name is not trivial, and comes at a tense time for Mark Zuckerberg’s group, which is facing criticism from all sides. In October he has on one side experienced a historical failure of several hours on all its apps, while on the other, the whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked tens of thousands of internal documents to the social network Facebook. In these “Facebook Files”, we learned, for example, that the platform had long been aware of certain negative repercussions of its algorithms on its users, but also on the democratic processes of certain States.

A name change would not immediately resolve Facebook’s image concerns (just see how much the name of Alphabet is less used than that of Google, even years after the tech giant’s change), but perhaps allow it to dodge some criticism.

Mark Zuckerberg presents the Metaverse

Mark Zuckerberg has assumed it for some time: his goal is to transform Facebook in a kind of giant “metaverse”, a ” fictitious virtual universe, in which individuals could evolve in persistent and shared spaces, in three dimensions “. To build it, he plans to hire 10,000 people over the next five years.

Much of Mark Zuckerberg’s presentation was dedicated to this famous metaverse, and the way the Facebook boss sees it. The CEO assured that, according to him, it would simply be ” future of today’s mobile internet “, Although this is intended for” a rather distant future », He conceded.

According to him, the metaverse will revolve around certain concepts such as avatars, teleportation, virtual objects and natural interfaces.

In a presentation video clearly focused on anticipation, we see in particular a woman ” project Her avatar at a concert attended by her best friend, in real life.

A transition that began a few years ago

In November 2019, the Facebook group (of its name at the time) had already changed its logo, which was no longer just blue, but could take on several colors depending on the application on which it was found. ” We are updating our brand image to make it clearer », Explained Antonio Lucio, marketing manager of the multinational at the time.

Originally, the Facebook social network was called The Facebook, when Mark Zuckerberg launched it in 2004 with his roommate Eduardo Saverin, and before Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes joined them in the adventure.

Hours before the start of the conference, a curious little one walked past the Facebook premises and saw what already looked like the logo of Meta, the new name of the company formerly known as Facebook.

#Facebook new name! #SneakPeek ? pic.twitter.com/z28kEx7MMQ

– RO (@ro_olvera) October 28, 2021

The continuation in video