People have talked about Facebook rebranding itself for weeks if not months. However, no one took it seriously - until it happened.
Earlier this week, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook had renamed itself to Meta. What does this mean, you ask? A lot of things, for starters. Don't worry, we understand that the move involves a lot of technical jargon that the average consumer won't understand. This is exactly what we're here to help with. Does this mean that Facebook is gone? Facebook is still, well, Facebook. The social media platform continues to operate as is despite the announcement. If that's the case, you might wonder, why did the headlines say that Facebook had already rebranded itself?
Going forward, Facebook will operate under the Meta corporate umbrella. This will encompass other Meta-owned properties (formerly Facebook) such as WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook the social media network. Meta is also doing away with the Oculus brand as it will start incorporating Oculus, including the Quest 2 VR headset, into its various properties. What is this "metaverse" that Zuckerberg was talking about? Ready Player One is the future that Meta is talking about, just minus the dystopian part.
Meta isn't the first company to talk about the word "metaverse". Epic had talked about this in the past. Not to mention, the word has floated around in several media for years. For the most part, we can trace its origins from Snow Crash, a 90s sci-fi novel set in a world where people had begun escaping to a virtual world. According to Zuckerberg, this is the future of the internet. Zuckerberg believes that it's only a matter of time before people start interacting with 3D avatars of themselves.
