Happy Nice Mall

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook has come to the fore in the last two decades with some of the world’s most recognizable brands: a large blue-and-white letter F.

Now. On Thursday, the social networking giant took an unmistakable step towards overhauling Facebook by downgrading its name and rebranding itself to Meta. The change was accompanied by a new corporate logo designed like a slightly distorted infinity symbol. Facebook and its other apps like Instagram and WhatsApp will remain under the Meta umbrella.

The move shows CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to refocus the Silicon Valley company on what he sees as the next digital frontier. metadata store. At the same time, renaming Facebook could help the company steer clear of the social networking controversies it faces, including how it’s used. spreading hate speech and misinformation.

“I thought a lot about our identity” with this new episode, Mr. Zuckerberg said in a speech at a virtual event on Thursday to showcase Facebook’s technology bets on the future. “Over time, I hope we’ll be seen as a metaverse company.”

With the change, Mr. Zuckerberg telegraphed that his company has moved beyond today’s social networks, on which Facebook has been built since its founding 17 years ago. He said that while the company now has many apps and is basically about connecting people, it is no longer defensible to have the company name Facebook.

Mr. Zuckerberg said Facebook is committed to building a composite universe that brings together online, virtual and augmented worlds that people can navigate seamlessly. He said that this concept, known as Metaverse, could be the next big social platform and that several tech companies will build it over the next 10 years. On Monday, Facebook signaled its intent to become a major player when it split its virtual reality and augmented reality business into a segment known as Facebook Reality Labs.

But transforming Facebook into a metaverse company will take time as the concept is theoretical and could take years to achieve. Facebook and its sister apps also remain a giant business, generating more than $86 billion in annual revenue and serving more than 3.5 billion people worldwide.

The timing of the name change has a double advantage. Facebook grappled with some issues most intense review on the last few weeks. Lawmakers and the public have criticized the Instagram photo-sharing app for hurting the self-confidence of some young people, and the company has faced questions about its role in fueling misinformation and creating unrest with provocative content.

The screams then reached fever pitch Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee has leaked internal documents showing how much the company knows about the harmful effects it causes. Findings from Ms. Haugen’s documents were first published by The Wall Street Journal and subsequently by other media outlets, including The New York Times.

The revelations sparked a series of congressional hearings, as well as legal and regulatory scrutiny. On Monday, Mrs. Haugen Meeting with British MPs in parliament and urged them to regulate Facebook. Tuesday, He told Facebook employees “Protecting internal documents and communications since 2016” related to their business as governments and legislatures initiate investigations into their activities.

Corporate rebrands are rare, but they have precedent. It has often been used to signal a company’s structural restructuring or to steer a company away from a toxic reputation.

in 2015 Google has restructured itself Under a new parent company called Alphabet, it is splitting itself up into separate companies to better differentiate its internet search business from its best bets in other areas. Netflix in 2011 split the video job into two parts, briefly renamed its DVD-mail arm Qwikster.

After that Boundary When Facebook announced last week that it might change its name, social media exploded with less desirable comparisons. Some remembered how tobacco giant Philip Morris rebranded as Altria Group in 2001 after years of reputational loss. over health costs and the effects of cigarettes on the American public.

Nicholas Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global policy and communications, dismissed the comparisons, calling them “highly misleading”.

Facebook’s name change is largely cosmetic. It will begin trading under the stock ticker MVRS from December 1st. The company will also move away from Oculus’ original brand, rebranding some virtual reality products to Meta.

The company was not restructured and no managerial changes were made. Mr. Zuckerberg also remains general manager and chairman. The majority has the right to vote on any changes that may affect the future of the company.

Jennifer Grygiel, associate professor and social media researcher at Syracuse University, said, “Whatever Mark Zuckerberg calls himself, Zuckerberg Inc. will remain,” he said.

For months, Facebook has been developing its metaverse announcement. Last year, it launched its newest virtual reality headsets. Oculus Mission 2. In August, it introduced the virtual reality service called. Horizon Study Rooms, a virtual meeting room where people using virtual reality headsets can gather as if they were in a face-to-face business meeting. And announced in September a new line of glasses With Ray-Ban which can record video.

All of these products are part of the meta-universe, which Mr. Zuckerberg admitted on Thursday sounds like “science fiction.”

Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s chief technology officer, said that the metaverse will need significant technological breakthroughs to materialize, and that the company is working on new versions of its virtual reality and augmented reality hardware to make it smaller, cheaper and more immersive.

Despite this, Mr. Zuckerberg talked about the idea of ​​a “successor to the mobile internet” on Thursday, saying that mobile devices will no longer be the focus. The building blocks for the Metaverse were also already in place, he said. In one show, she showed off a digital avatar of herself that was transported to different digital worlds while talking to her friends and family, wherever they were on the planet.

“You’ll really feel like you’re there with other people,” she said. “You will not be locked into a single world or platform.”

Mr. Zuckerberg said creating the metaverse will require work across different tech companies, new forms of governance and other elements that may not come in the short term. But he did reveal a few areas where the metaverse could be applied, referring to topics like video games, fitness, and business.

Mr. Zuckerberg showed off Horizon Workrooms, a virtual conference room product where colleagues can work together remotely on different projects they may have once done in the office. He mentioned several immersive video games. And he showed off Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality-based social network where friends and family can get together and interact.

Success will depend, in part, on attracting others to create new applications and programs that run on the metadata store. As in the mobile app economy, users are more likely to join new computing ecosystems if they have programs and software to use.

As a result, Mr. Zuckerberg said he will continue to offer low-cost or free services to developers and invest in attracting more developers through creative funds and other capital injections. Among other things, Facebook has earmarked $150 million for developers creating new kinds of immersive learning apps and programs.

We are fully committed to this issue,” he said. “This is the next part of our study.”