What comes to your mind first if I say Facebook? It may be the super popular social media platform that you use to stay connected with your friends and family. Or it can be the tech giant that is seemingly always wrapped up in some drama. What about Facebook and MetaVerse? If you do not know what I’m talking about, you are in the right place.
Facebook wants to change its name to be more aligned with the MetaVerse vision where everything is interconnected. Facebook wants the public image of the site to move away from just a social media platform. Although, there might be some other reasons as well.
That is of course, not the whole story. There is much more to it. I will go in-depth in explaining what the MetaVerse is and how Facebook rebranding itself is going to help its vision for the future of the company and technology as a whole. Let’s get started.
What is The MetaVerse?
Let’s kick things off by explaining what the MetaVerse even is. Is it some kind of comic book universe for tech companies? Well, sort of but exactly. If you want to break the word down, there are two parts to it.
The ‘Meta’ in MetaVerse means beyond. While the suffix, ‘Verse‘ refers to the universe. It is a time where everything is interconnected with technology and everyone can interact through various technologies.
It will allow all brands, customers or users, or even content creators to be interconnected. Have you seen the movie Ready Player One? That does a good job of explaining the MetaVerse. By the way, if you have not seen the movie. You definitely should.
This word is not new though. It was first introduced way back in 1992 in Neal Stephenson’s book The Snow – also a very good read.
This term is already being used by cryptocurrency groups to describe how a shared universe can operate in the future.
Why Is Facebook Rebranding Itself?
So, how does this all relate to Facebook? Big tech companies changing names is not new. To be more specific, other companies have done the same. One high-profile example is Google with Alphabet.
Alphabet was formed as a parent company of Google and other ventures. Facebook is aiming to do the same. The social media giant already has thousands of employees and operates so much more than its core social media business.
Apart from Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram it also owns the VR company Oculus. The company’s ultimate goal is to move away from the image of only a social media company.
That is what Mark Zuckerberg aims to gain with this massive change. This has been one of the most breaking news in the history of breaking news. Facebook is quite serious about this move too. The company already plans to invest $50 million to create a ‘responsible’ MetaVerse.
Zuckerberg is a smart man. Well, of course, he is. He created Facebook. What I mean is though he maybe wants to do more futuristic things with his time. Facebook is a mature platform. Although it does not mean it can run itself, having a parent company or a holding company like Alphabet, makes sense at this point.
A complete rebrand and new name adoption could take years. Given Facebook’s size and the scale it operates, major changes like these could take years. Facebook hosts its annual Connect conference and the newest one for the year 2021 is stated to happen on the 28th of October.
That is where the founder of Facebook, is hoping to talk about the name change. But some say that the name change announcement could come even before that.
Facebook and Its Never-Ending Controversies
A part of the rebrand is also thought to be linked with the monstrous amount of scrutiny the platform has been facing over a couple of years. It has just been slapped with its most damaging controversy ever.
Facebook is no stranger to controversy and scrutiny from the government. It is hard to go on the internet and not hear something about the social media giant. There have been lawsuits and news reports about how Facebook fails to regulate the content that gets posted on its site.
Former employee, Frances Haugen, leaked tons of internal classified data which has caught the attention of the whole world. CNN and other news outlets got access to a ton of internal documents that put lights on a lot of damning news.
Things like how the site allowed blatant misinformation to be spread before the 2020 presidential election. There are reports about how Facebook is trying to limit an internal ‘integrity team’ that is trying to limit harmful information from spreading on the platform.
Also, a story of Facebook failing to remove and block a human trafficking group. Yes, you read that right – human trafficking group. It only managed to do it when there was sufficient incentive. Apple threatened to remove the app from the App Store.
Things like stopping human trafficking should not need to have sufficient incentives. It does not end there though. Facebook and Google seemingly have also partnered up to manipulate the ad market. Ads are both Google and Facebook’s major revenue sources.
Therefore, a Facebook rebranding could help Mark Zuckerberg separate his dealings with more futuristic tech and problems without being weighed down by the controversies Facebook may attract now and then.
Wrapping Up
Facebook and MetaVerse are a big topic. And a controversial one at that. The name change seems only just a rebrand for the sake of creating a MetaVerse. So, the name change is not just about Facebook creating a holding company where Facebook is only a part of it – albeit a very big part.
But it also seems to be a way to deal with the immense amount of legal battles and scrutiny the site has been facing. As things progress, it is yet left to be seen how things turn out. But one thing is for sure, Facebook has big plans and even bigger ambitions for itself.
