Noah Esper

Staff Writer

Nle5099@psu.edu

Facebook has recently changed its name to Meta as a part of its current initiative to create technology for a supposed Metaverse. The change in name will only affect the corporate holding company and not its actual apps and systems. So applications like the Facebook platform will still be called Facebook. Facebook’s rebrand to Meta can be compared to Google choosing to rebrand its parent company to Alphabet which currently owns companies like Google, Nest, and Waze. 

The reason for this change was to allow the company to pursue other ventures besides their main product, the Google Search engine. It’s likely Facebook’s rebrand was done for similar purposes. Since Facebook owns companies in other industries besides social media, rebranding as Meta allows Facebook to invest into other industries free from the association with the social media platform. 

Facebook’s given reason for choosing the name Meta was to better reflect their current goal of establishing the metaverse. The metaverse is the next evolution to the internet and online technology. It combines virtual and altered reality technology to create an online platform that is almost indistinguishable from our physical reality. As this technology rapidly improves, companies like Meta – Facebook –  are rushing to capitalize on what could be a lucrative new industry.

The pandemic has already pushed many businesses to incorporate virtual technologies like Zoom or Google Meet. Many believe that virtual reality could be the next step for a post-covid workplace.

 However, Facebook has received some backlash for this rebranding. Amid recent cases of whistleblowers exposing Facebook for being knowingly harmful to its users, many see this rebranding as an attempt by Facebook to distract consumers from these allegations. The rebrand also allows Facebook to ditch the name and the increasingly negative reputation attached to it. 

While Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied these allegations, many see his appearances in the recent Meta ads as an attempted form of image control. 

As for the success of Facebook’s new direction and rebranding, that remains to be seen. Facebook is not the only company seeking to create the metaverse. Many others have noticed its great potential for profit and it could very well be the next dot com bubble as new competitors race to be the first to develop a definitive metaverse.