Facebook has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately, but the latest piece of announcement changes the tracks. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday revealed the new name of the social media platform, in a major rebranding effort since inception. Facebook's chief said the new name will be Meta in hopes to "reflect who we are and what we hope to build," Zuckerberg said.
"Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product. But over time, I hope we are seen as a metaverse company," Zuckerberg said at the company's Connect event. The Twitter handle @meta has already been owned by Zuckerberg and the official website highlights the changes that come with the rebranding.
The names of the apps that the company built—Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp—will remain the same.
Facebook rebranding
Reports of Facebook's rebranding emerged first in October as a part of the company's plans to be more than just a social media platform and focus on Zuckerberg's plans to build the metaverse. Facebook chief had said in July that Facebook would "effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company."
Heavy spending on metaverse
Facebook said it will spend more than $10 billion to build out its vision for "metaverse" - a new phase of interconnected virtual experiences using technologies like Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR). The firm will spend billions of dollars on Facebook Reality Labs, its metaverse division tasked with creating AR and VR hardware, software, and content.
"We are committed to bringing this long-term vision to life and we expect to increase our investments for the next several years," the company wrote in its third-quarter earnings release.
Facebook sees AR and VR as being core to "the next generation of online social experiences".
It has invested heavily in VR and AR, including buying companies like Oculus this year created a product team to work on the metaverse.
