Facebook changes name to Meta, embraces virtual reality

Facebook Inc. is re-christening itself Meta Platforms Inc., decoupling its corporate identity and highlighting a shift to an emerging computing platform focused on virtual reality.

“The metaverse is the next frontier. From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first.” Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg, said in a presentation at Facebook’s Connect conference, held virtually on Thursday.

The name change is the most definitive signal so far of the company’s intention to stake its future on a new computing platform — the metaverse, an idea born in the imaginations of sci-fi novelists.

In Meta’s vision, people will congregate and communicate by entering virtual environments, whether they’re talking with colleagues in a boardroom or hanging out with friends in far-flung corners of the world.

“Today we are seen as a social media company, but in our DNA we are a company that builds technology to connect people, and the metaverse is the next frontier just like social networking was when we got started,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.

The company also said in announcing the new name that it will change its stock ticker from FB to MVRS, effective December 1.

Meta’s stock price closed up on Thursday.

Meanwhile, in July, the company announced the formation of a team that would work on the metaverse.

Two months later, the company said it would elevate Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, who is currently the head of the company’s hardware division, to the role of chief technology officer in 2022.

And in its third-quarter earnings results on Monday, the company announced that it will break out Reality Labs, its hardware division, into its own reporting segment, starting in the fourth quarter.

“Our hope is that within the next decade, the metaverse will reach a billion people, host hundreds of billions of dollars of digital commerce, and support jobs for millions of creators and developers,” Zuckerberg wrote in a letter on Thursday.

Over the past few years, the company has ramped up its efforts in hardware, introducing a line of Portal video-calling devices, launching the Ray-Ban Stories glasses and rolling out various versions of the Oculus virtual-reality headsets.

The company has indicated that augmented and virtual reality will be a key part of its strategy in the coming years.

Source: Bloomberg/CNBC