Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg has announced a change in the parent company’s name to “Meta” to represent a future beyond just its troubled social network.
The development comes as the social media giant tries
to fend off one its worst crises yet and pivot to its ambitions for the
“metaverse” virtual reality version of the internet that the tech giant
sees as the future, AFP reports.
He, however, stated that Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp will keep their names under the rebranding.
A
statement from Zuckerberg reads: “We are at the beginning of the next
chapter for the internet, and it’s the next chapter for our company too.
“In
recent decades, technology has given people the power to connect and
express ourselves more naturally. When I started Facebook, we mostly
typed text on websites. When we got phones with cameras, the internet
became more visual and mobile. As connections got faster, video became a
richer way to share experiences. We’ve gone from desktop to web to
mobile; from text to photos to video. But this isn’t the end of the
line.
“The next platform will be even more immersive — an embodied
internet where you’re in the experience, not just looking at it. We call
this the metaverse, and it will touch every product we build.
"The
defining quality of the metaverse will be a feeling of presence — like
you are right there with another person or in another place. Feeling
truly present with another person is the ultimate dream of social
technology. That is why we are focused on building this.
“In the
metaverse, you’ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine — get
together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create — as
well as completely new experiences that don’t really fit how we think
about computers or phones today. We made a film that explores how you
might use the metaverse one day.
“In this future, you will be able to
teleport instantly as a hologram to be at the office without a commute,
at a concert with friends, or in your parents’ living room to catch up.
This will open up more opportunity no matter where you live. You’ll be
able to spend more time on what matters to you, cut down time in
traffic, and reduce your carbon footprint.
“Think about how many
physical things you have today that could just be holograms in the
future. Your TV, your perfect work setup with multiple monitors, your
board games and more — instead of physical things assembled in
factories, they’ll be holograms designed by creators around the world.
”You’ll
move across these experiences on different devices — augmented reality
glasses to stay present in the physical world, virtual reality to be
fully immersed, and phones and computers to jump in from existing
platforms. This isn’t about spending more time on screens; it’s about
making the time we already spend better.
“The metaverse will not be
created by one company. It will be built by creators and developers
making new experiences and digital items that are interoperable and
unlock a massively larger creative economy than the one constrained by
today’s platforms and their policies.
“Our role in this journey is to
accelerate the development of the fundamental technologies, social
platforms and creative tools to bring the metaverse to life, and to
weave these technologies through our social media apps. We believe the
metaverse can enable better social experiences than anything that exists
today, and we will dedicate our energy to helping achieve its
potential.
“As I wrote in our original founder’s letter: “we don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.”
The
social media giant has been battling crisis since former employee
Frances Haugen leaked internal studies showing executives knew of their
sites’ potential for harm, prompting a renewed US push for regulation.
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