Meta And Facebook, Why Facebook Became Meta ?
Meta Platform Inc is an American multinational company in Menlo Park, California. This multinational company owns various social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Likewise, the Meta company is listed among the top five American information technology companies. Furthermore, the IT company is also one of the most valuable companies in the world.
Despite Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, Meta also owns Oculus, Giphy, Mapillary, and so on. Likewise, it also has invested a 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms.
In October of 2021, the head company of Facebook renamed itself from Facebook Inc. to Meta Platforms Inc.
Source: Youtube
Tracking back, Facebook filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on January 1, 2012, and raised $5 billion. Likewise, Mark Zuckerberg retained a 22% ownership share along with 57% of the voting shares.
Meanwhile, Facebook founded Libra Networks in order to develop their own stablecoin cryptocurrency. On the other hand, Meta has also acquired some renowned companies.
Starting with Instagram. Meta or then known as Facebook Inc, acquired Instagram in April 2012. Furthermore, it also acquired Onavo the next year.
Furthermore, Meta then acquired WhatsApp in February 2014 for $19 million. Likewise, it went on to do a $5.7 billion deal with the Indian Multinational company Reliance Industries and purchased 10% of Jio Platforms.
Moreover, Facebook then acquired Giphy for $400 million. Some of its recent acquire include Lofelt in September 2022. Lofelt is a Berlin-based haptic tech startup.
Why did Facebook become Meta?
Following much conjecture, Facebook, the business that controls platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, will rename Meta on October 28, 2021. Meta does not want to be remembered only as a social networking platform.
The name was selected to reflect the major product that Zuckerberg thinks symbolizes Facebook – now Meta -: the multiverse. The announcement gave Facebook, now Meta, an early and decisive lead in the fight to create a richer online world.
Source: Youtube
So you might think, what is metaverse?
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, and founder of Facebook, has said the metaverse is the virtual world where people can do anything and everything, including work, games, and socialize.
The term “metaverse” was invented by author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. Stephenson described the metaverse in his novel as an all-encompassing digital universe that lives alongside the actual world.
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The metaverse does not compete with the internet but expands upon it. Users in the metaverse navigate a virtual environment that duplicates parts of the physical world via the use of technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and augmented reality (AR).
In our opinion, Mark Zuckerberg wants a create a metaverse knowing the future of the virtual world. We do already have companies such as Microsoft, Binance, and Epic Games working on metaverse. Therefore Facebook wanted to create a metaverse of its own and named it Meta.
The next reason might be to distract the public. We know that recent whistleblower Frances Haugen came forward with the leaked document. The malpractices, other toxic business practices, and evidence of the long term negative impact the platform will have on the public.
Mark just might want to rebrand itself.
Some of the Meta Corporate Headquarters and offices are located in
- Menlo Park, California
- Altoona, Pennsylvania
- Ashburn, Virginia
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Austin, Texas
- Bellevue, Washington
- Boston, Massachusetts
- Burlingame, California
- Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Chicago, Illinois
New Features Added By Meta
- 3D Gaming- Meta’s Facebook now allows you to watch 3D space with your family and friends. It further allows you to enjoy playing games together.
- Attending Live Music Concert- With this feature of Meta, one can join a live music concert with your friends. This feature is available with the help of Facebook Metaverse 3D Devices.
- Attending events together- People can organize and attend events together in virtual 3D space.
Facebook is planning to connect social media in the virtual world. Likewise, its vision of Zuckerberg is to bring 3D animation with the help of VR devices and connections.
Furthermore, users can now share their movie-watching or concert-watching experiences with their friends using Facebook Meta VR.
Facebook has its own Oculus platform to sell the products required to experience the virtual worlds of Meta.
Users can buy VR devices from Oculus to uplift their gaming experience.
Paid Features and More
According to recent reports, Meta plans more paid features on Facebook and Instagram. It has all come to our attention that Meta’s most of the revenue comes from ads. The platform already has various paid features and plans to add more to the table.
Paid features across any social media platform are the current trend. Several social media platforms like TikTok are ahead in this race. However, Facebook/ Meta, one of the old social media platforms, don’t pay for its content.
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For the change, WhatsApp has started charging certain businesses for them to message their customers. This version of WhatsApp is named WhatsApp Business.
Likewise, Instagram has also announced that its creator can also charge a subscription for exclusive content.
Moreover, in June, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that the company won’t take a cut of transactions from paid features and subscriptions till 2024.
For simplification to understand, Meta is an overarching company that runs Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, and Oculus, among others. The social media giant Facebook is reposting itself to build a metaverse, and in keeping with that goal, they have created Meta.
According to various research, the metaverse is expected to reach 1 billion people within the next ten years.
