Facebook's New Name Is Meta, Mark Zuckerberg Announces

Facebook has a new name of 'Meta', CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed at the company's Connect event.

Announcing the major rebrand, Zuckerberg said that the social media platform's new name will be Meta 'to reflect who we are and what we hope to build'.

He said: "We are a company that builds technology to connect.

"Together, we can finally put people at the center of our technology. And together, we can unlock a massively bigger creator economy."

Zuckerberg explained that the name Facebook doesn't encompass everything the company does, saying he wants it to be seen as a 'metaverse'.

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"Right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product," he said.

"But over time, I hope we are seen as a metaverse company."

The Verge also reports that Zuckerberg owns the Twitter handle @meta and meta.com, which now redirects to a welcome page on Facebook outlining the changes.

"Connection is evolving and so are we," it says.

"The metaverse is the next evolution of social connection. Our company's vision is to help bring the metaverse to life, so we are changing our name to reflect our commitment to this future."

In a press release, the company said Meta will bring its apps and technologies 'under one new company brand', adding that the focus of the new platform 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," the release added.

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Zuckerberg also discussed the changes in a blog post, saying it was time for the 'next chapter' of his company, promising an 'even more immersive' new platform.

"We are at the beginning of the next chapter for the internet, and it's the next chapter for our company too," he said.

"In recent decades, technology has given people the power to connect and express ourselves more naturally. When I started Facebook, we mostly typed text on websites. When we got phones with cameras, the internet became more visual and mobile. As connections got faster, video became a richer way to share experiences. We've gone from desktop to web to mobile; from text to photos to video. But this isn't the end of the line.

"The next platform will be even more immersive - an embodied internet where you're in the experience, not just looking at it. We call this the metaverse, and it will touch every product we build.

"The defining quality of the metaverse will be a feeling of presence - like you are right there with another person or in another place. Feeling truly present with another person is the ultimate dream of social technology. That is why we are focused on building this."

Jess Hardiman

Jess is a journalist at LADbible who graduated from Manchester University with a degree in Film Studies, English Language and Linguistics - indecisiveness at its finest, right there. She also works for FOODbible and its sister page Seitanists, which are both a safe haven for her to channel a love for homemade pasta, fennel and everything else in between. You can contact Jess at [email protected].

@Jess_Hardiman