Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, announced the company’s new name at its annual Connect conference on Thursday. The company will now be known as Meta, partly in an effort to distinguish it from the website Facebook, which will retain its name, and partly to reflect Zuckerberg’s vision for the future of the internet.
The name is a reference to the metaverse, a concept that takes its name from the 1992 Neal Stephenson novel Snow Crash. While there is no single universally accepted definition of the metaverse, an about page on Meta’s website describes it as, “ a set of virtual spaces where you can create and explore with other people who aren’t in the same physical space as you.”
Other definitions are more complex. Venture capitalist Matthew Ball, author of Metaverse Primer, describes it as, “an expansive network of persistent, real-time rendered 3D worlds and simulations that support continuity of identity, objects, history, payments, and entitlements, and can be experienced synchronously by an effectively unlimited number of users, each with an individual sense of presence.”
Digital scholar Janet Murray’s definition is far more straightforward; she describes the metaverse as “a magical Zoom meeting that has all the playful release of Animal Crossing.”
When announcing the name change, Zuckerberg explained that the name Facebook is still closely linked to one product, and doesn’t fully encompass everything the company is and does, including its other popular social media platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp. The decision to distinguish between a company and its most popular product isn’t unusual in Silicon Valley: Google was renamed Alphabet Inc. following a 2015 restructuring, and Apple dropped the ‘Computers’ from its company name in 2007 in order to reflect its shift into offering a wider range of products.
“We are a company that builds technology to connect,” Zuckerberg said. “Together, we can finally put people at the center of our technology. And together, we can unlock a massively bigger creator economy.” He added, “over time, I hope we are seen as a metaverse company.”
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