Zuckerberg Launches Fb’s ‘Subsequent Chapter’ By Renaming Firm Meta – CBS San Francisco
MENLO PARK (CBS SF / AP) – Under attack in the media and in Washington, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday that he would change the name of the company he founded to “Meta” to reflect the attempt at social media – To reflect giants, move on to its “next” chapter, ”and away from the controversy that entangles it.
The announcement makes Facebook one of Meta’s eponymous services alongside Instagram and WhatsApp.
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“I’ve been thinking a lot about our identities as we begin this next chapter,” he said. “Facebook is one of the most widely used products in world history. It’s an iconic social media brand, but increasingly, it just doesn’t encompass everything we do. “
He said the name reflected his vision of a futuristic metaverse.
Skeptics point out, however, that this also appears to be an attempt to change the subject from the Facebook Papers, a leaked document find dubbed by a consortium of news organizations including The Associated Press.
Many of these documents, first described by former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen, have revealed how Facebook has ignored or downplayed internal warnings of the negative and often harmful consequences its algorithms created or created for social networks around the world have enlarged.
“I know some people will say that this is not the time to focus on the future, and I want to acknowledge that there are important issues in the present that need to be worked on. There will always be, ”said Zuckerberg. “For a lot of people, I’m just not sure if there will ever be a good time to focus on the future. But I also know that many of you feel the same way as me. “
“We live for what we build,” added Zuckerberg. “And while we make mistakes, we keep learning and building and moving.”
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Zuckerberg believes the Metaverse will reach a billion people within the next decade. The Metaverse, he says, will be a place where people can interact, work, and create products and content in what he hopes will be a new ecosystem that will create millions of creative jobs.
The announcement comes amid an existential crisis for Facebook. Following the revelations in the Facebook papers, it is subject to tightened legislative and regulatory scrutiny in many parts of the world.
Facebook, the app, will stay with Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. the corporate structure of the company will not change either. But on December 1st the shares will trade under the new ticker symbol “MVRS”.
Metaverse, he said, was the new way. A fan of classics, Zuckerberg explained that the word “meta” comes from the Greek word “beyond”.
A rebranding of the company will not solve the myriad problems with Facebook that have been exposed in thousands of internal documents over the past few weeks. It probably won’t even make people stop calling the social media giant Facebook – or a “social media giant” for that matter.
But that doesn’t stop Zuckerberg, who is apparently eager to move on to his next big thing as crisis after crisis looms in the company he founded.
While largely dismissing revelations from the Facebook Papers as unfair criticism, Zuckerberg has focused on building a virtual environment that you can walk into instead of just looking at a screen.
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Just as smartphones are replacing desktop computers, Zuckerberg is betting that the Metaverse will be the next way people interact with computers – and with each other. If Instagram and messaging were Facebook’s forays into mobile evolution, Meta is its bet on the Metaverse. And what’s better than a name change to show how serious he is?
