“Right now, we are seen as a social media company, but in our DNA we are a firm that builds technology to connect people “Mark Zuckerberg pointed out last Thursday at the Connect conference. At the event, he unveiled new products and goals around the metaverse. “The time has come to adopt a new company brand that encompasses everything we do, that reflects who we are and what we hope to build,” he said. He then announced a new name for his firm: Meta, instead of Facebook.
But what is the metaverse? It is a vision of a new space for interaction between machines, idealized avatars and a new virtual world where art, architecture, beauty and fiction meet to socialize, buy or do business.
As a new social space, our young people are already comfortable in it. It should be noted the case of Fortnite. Generation Z, that is, those born after 2000, already know what it is to interact in that metaverse, go to concerts in it or spend hours talking and socializing in a hyper-realistic environment but, at the same time, so far from reality .
The world that they see is not the one that we have seen or known. They no longer want to travel or touch the Chinese wall or the branches of a lush tree. His way of living in a world isolated by masks is to flee from it and locate a space without viruses, without phobias and without barriers, a world where you can be, although not be.
2030 and exploiting the metaverse
And the members of that generation Z will be the main consumers in 10 years. Thus, experts believe that it will be in 2030 when technology and society are likely to be ready for the mass exploitation of the metaverse. Even here 5G will not be the enabling technology, no. We are talking about the future 6G as the technological solution that allows us to put on augmented reality glasses, that is, seeing information superimposed in my real field of vision, or virtual reality glasses, which allow a total experience in the metaverse.
So if technologically we are still far from that metaverse, Why this change of name at this time for the most important technology company in the world, the almighty Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp? Well, without a doubt, several components are mixed here, from the technological component to the purely business, but Zuckerberg is right that it is time for this transformation.
First of all, indeed, the race for the ‘gold’ of the metaverse is launched at this time. From graphic designers, building architects and sociologists, to, obviously, computer scientists and telecommunications engineers, a whole host of young technologists are working to make that future a reality.
A key component in the new parallel reality
Will that investment be successful? We will know in 10 years, but I would say yes, because I am already seeing success in my children. Facebook will undoubtedly be a key component in this new parallel reality and with this name change it marks its ambition: to be the monopoly of the socialization of the future, to own the new world and to find the gold of the metaverse.
Facebook already owns the Oculus company, which is a leader in the virtual reality goggles sector. So it seems that it will continue in this direction and will stop being merely the largest provider of social software, to also be a provider of hardware for this new world that is coming.
On the other hand, the use of the new brand, Meta, would allow the company to be more logically separated in the future using this new dimension, the technological one. Perhaps this division is something that allows Zuckerberg to be the CEO of this new company again and easily free himself of other, more toxic assets that could harm his business. Are we facing the planned death of the Facebook social network? Time will tell.
And this is the third component of this decision, eliminate the bad image that weighs down the Facebook brand. Now everyone associates this brand with a decadent business, while Instagram or WhatsApp still sound like success.
Facebook projects us an image of fragility in cybersecurity, of invasion of our privacy, of information control, of political bias, conspiracies and addiction to that famous book of faces that reminds us of the school yearbook.
The daily unsubscriptions to this social network are counted by thousands, a network that has less and less accesses and less interest, especially for the new generations, Faceboook is now the stronghold of the ‘old’, who would say in Generation Z, much more identified with the social network of Instagram or with the new trends of Twitch or Tik Tok. The power of the millisecond, some call it. Everything goes much faster, in contrast to how slow life passes on Facebook.
For Zuckerberg, it seems like the ideal time to forget the scandals and his marketing experts will have advised him that a smokescreen is the best escape from decay. Separate the brand from its star products and slowly let the dairy cow die that long ago ceased to be a star.
The new motto of his presentation was that Meta was born to see the birth of a company that develops technology to connect people: “Connecting people!”, He exclaimed in his presentation act. This was also the motto of the defunct Nokia. It was the first thing that came to mind when I heard the risky words of Mark Zuckerber, all of them measured to the millimeter, of course. Identifying Meta with Nokia was undoubtedly a nod to whoever marked his childhood in the past, who changed the way of connecting people in the 90s.
But, as happened with Nokia, a bad decision can bring down even the greatest of the colossi. We will see if this risky bet is a wise decision or not. For now, what they have undoubtedly achieved is that everyone is talking about Facebook again. I mean, from Meta. Facebook is a thing of the past and it smells like mothballs.
José F. Monserrat Researcher at the University Institute of Telecommunications and Multimedia Applications and professor at the Polytechnic University of Valencia
-Go to the Tercer Milenio supplement
Sign up and receive the science newsletter every week in your email
– .
