Today (28th Oct 2021) at Connect 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Meta, which brings together their apps and technologies under one new company brand. Meta’s focus will be to bring the metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses.
The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together — and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world. It’s the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, and it’s ushering in a new chapter for their company. Mark shared more about this vision in a founder’s letter.
Their annual Connect conference brings together augmented and virtual reality developers, content creators, marketers and others to celebrate the industry’s momentum and growth. This year’s virtual event explored what experiences in the metaverse could feel like over the next decade — from social connection, to entertainment, gaming, fitness, work, education and commerce. They also announced new tools to help people build for the metaverse, including Presence Platform, which will enable new mixed reality experiences on Quest 2, and a $150-million investment in immersive learning to train the next generation of creators.
The company said it would better "encompass" what it does, as it broadens its reach beyond social media into areas like virtual reality (VR).
The change does not apply to its individual platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, only the parent company that owns them. The name change is to bring the company's "apps and technologies under one new company brand", it said in a statement.
Since Facebook launched in 2004, the company has purchased social media apps Instagram and WhatsApp. It has also invested in other technologies including digital wallet Novi, video-calling device Portal and virtual reality system Oculus.
A big part of the rebrand is also to focus Meta on bringing the "metaverse" to life.
What is the metaverse?
The metaverse is a virtual world you can plug yourself into and do — in theory — almost anything.
Mark Zuckerberg said the metaverse would be a place where people could interact, work and create, and expects it to reach a billion people within the next decades. And while he doesn't expect to make any money off it in the short-term, the tech mogul is throwing his weight behind the idea.
"This is not an investment that is going to be profitable for us any time in the near future," Mark Zuckerberg told analysts.
"But we basically believe that the metaverse is going to be the successor to the mobile internet."
You can watch the full Connect keynote and learn more about how the metaverse will unlock new opportunities at meta.com.
