Facebook changes name to 'Meta'
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humminbird
Veteran
a$$hole 
it would be like Microsoft changing its name to internet or the net in 1999
it would be like Microsoft changing its name to internet or the net in 1999
humminbird
Veteran
also
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/28/facebook-meta-name-change/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/28/facebook-meta-name-change/
Facebook is changing its name to Meta as it focuses on the virtual world
The company made the decision amid a wave of criticism following the release of tens of thousands of internal documents.
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The Facebook logo is displayed for a photograph in 2018. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
By Elizabeth Dwoskin
Today at 2:18 p.m. EDT
Facebook on Thursday announced it changed its name to Meta, part of a strategic shift to emphasize the development of its virtual world while its main social network business is in crisis.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement at Connect, the company’s annual hardware event where it talks about products like the Portal video devices and Oculus headsets.
The rebranding — pegged to a virtual world and hardware known as the “metaverse” — comes amid a broader effort to shift attention away from revelations that it knew its platform was causing a litany of social harms. The Facebook social network is not changing its name.
A whistleblower has came forward with tens of thousands of documents demonstrating how the company was aware that it caused polarization in numerous countries, led people down misinformation rabbit holes, and failed to stop a violent network that led to the January 6 insurrection. In response, lawmakers around the world have threatened new regulation for the tech industry, as well as demanding more information from Facebook on what it knew and when.
The documents were obtained by a consortium of news organizations, including The Washington Post, and were provided to Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission in response to a whistleblower lawsuit.
Facebook has said that the Facebook Papers are a “coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company.”
How Facebook’s ‘metaverse’ became a political strategy in Washington
Facebook was already trying to change the subject even before The Wall Street Journal first reported on the documents. Zuckerberg has told colleagues that he no longer wants to be the face of the company’s headaches in Washington and elsewhere, according to reporting by The Post, and is focused on transitioning Facebook to become a “metaverse.”
The term, which is derived from science fiction but has become popular among some venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, refers to tech services as virtual interconnected worlds.
Facebook started as a social network in a college dorm room 17 years ago, but has become a conglomerate encompassing Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, as well as a nascent online payments and hardware businesses. That has led some in the tech industry, as well as employees, to speculate that the company was long overdue for a name change.
Facebook also isn’t the first Silicon Valley company to rebrand itself. Google changed its parent company name to Alphabet in 2015 in an attempt to unify a corporate behemoth that encompassed not only search and display advertising but also driverless cars and a life sciences division. Snapchat changed its name to Snap Inc. in an attempt to rebrand itself as a camera company.
Zuckerberg said this summer that the company would eventually become known as a metaverse, and then subsequently announced a smart glasses partnership with Ray-Ban and a plan to use its virtual reality headsets for work-related videoconferencing. He promoted a longtime friend who heads the hardware division, Andrew Bosworth, to become the company’s new Chief Technology Officer.
Later, the company announced it would create 10,000 new “metaverse-related” jobs. Zuckerberg said on the company’s earnings call this week that the hardware division would become a new line item in the company’s financial reports, and that investments in it would shave $10 billion from its profits in 2020.
Meta.com
Ukbrotha
Superstar
Parent company name or rename of the social network?
humminbird
Veteran
parent company
Prince.Skeletor
Don’t Be Like He-Man
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