On Thursday, October 28, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced during the 2021 Facebook Connect livestream event that the company would be rebranded and renamed as Meta.
Zuckerberg now owns the website meta.com, which redirects to a welcome page on Facebook that outlines these changes.
Why is Facebook Changing Its Name?
Facebook is being rebranded as an attempt to shift gears away from being best known as a social media company and look toward Zuckerberg’s plans for building the metaverse.
Notably, Facebook has been under a great deal of scrutiny recently after the release of internal documents by a Facebook whistleblower and former employee. These documents, dubbed the Facebook Papers, show many serious problems the company was allegedly aware of but chose to ignore for the sake of profit.
Some suspect this rebranding was timed to divert attention away from the Facebook Papers, although Zuckerberg denied this in an interview with The Verge, saying, “…this is not the environment you would want to introduce a new brand in.”
What is the Metaverse?
The metaverse is a concept that originates from the 1992 dystopian novel Snow Crash, in which people escape the real world and enter a virtual one. A more recent fictional example of a metaverse is Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One.
Despite the negative connotation associated with the word, Zuckerberg wants to create a fully immersive version of the internet that would let you show up in a virtual space as an avatar or a hologram in the real-world home of a friend across the globe.
The idea, if it is able to come to fruition, would likely change the scope of the internet and how we use it.
Is Facebook No Longer Going to be Called Facebook?
It depends on which Facebook you’re talking about. In the case of the social media platform, no, Facebook will still be called Facebook. What is changing is the name of the parent company, which owns Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Onavo, Beluga, and Oculus VR (the Oculus Quest line, however, will be rebranding to Meta Quest, and the Oculus App will become the Meta Quest app).
It’s similar to how Google changed its parent company name to Alphabet. Google is still Google, but the company that owns it is called Alphabet.
How Does This Announcement Affect Facebook Advertising?
As of right now, this announcement will not affect Facebook advertising and marketing efforts on any of Meta’s platforms. Its corporate structure will remain the same, but how it reports financial results will be changing, with reporting on 2 operating segments: Family of Apps and Reality Labs. This announcement does not affect how the company shares or uses data, either.
Should there be any changes to advertising on any of Meta’s platforms, OppGen will be prepared to pivot as need be. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens with Meta and the possibility of a metaverse.
