In addition to the social network Facebook, the company also owns Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus.
Zuckerberg revealed the name change and explained his vision of the metaverse, a 100% digital parallel reality to which he wants Meta to allocate a large part of its investments in the coming years.
The change affects only the owner company, so that the social network will continue to be called Facebook and the modification will have almost no effect in practice for the vast majority of users.
In his presentation, Zuckerberg showed several examples of what in his opinion should be the future of humanity in the “metaverse”, where people would move with their personalized avatars, dress them with digital clothing that they would buy within that same universe and go to events such as concerts.
One of the examples that the co-founder of the social network presented to help understand his vision of this parallel universe was that of a girl living in Japan who decides, through the metaverse, to go to a concert in Los Angeles (USA) with her best friend.
In a matter of seconds, the avatar of the Japanese girl is with her friend dancing and enjoying live music, and, once the performance is over, they both attend a virtual post-concert reception where they buy hats. and digital artist t-shirts.
Zuckerberg gave the talk from a fictitious house in the “metaverse”, where he walked, went from room to room and in which from time to time some of his friends appeared and disappeared to play ping-pong games, play chess or surf.
Video games, in fact, were the aspect that was most emphasized during the presentation this Thursday, and Zuckerberg explained that they are called to play a fundamental role in the development of this parallel universe.
The company’s founder gave examples of privacy and security controls that would be necessary, such as the ability to block someone from appearing in their space in the metaverse.
The company provided a host of updates to its augmented and virtual reality products. He said this year he would launch a way for people using their Oculus VR headsets to call their friends using Facebook Messenger and for people to invite others to a social version of their home, dubbed “Horizon Home,” to talk and play. as avatars.
Facebook also said it would introduce a way for Oculus Quest users to use different 2D apps like Slack, Dropbox, and Facebook while in this Horizon Home virtual reality space.
The firm, which began beta testing its Horizon Workrooms virtual meeting spaces earlier this year, said it was working on ways to customize them with company logos and designs and said it would bring more work capabilities to Quest devices. consumers. It also announced new fitness offerings for Oculus Quest users.
So, the social network Facebook would not change its name. However, this change would mark the company’s innovative focus for the next few years: the construction of a great metaverse.
Metaverso
The word metaverse (metaverse) was born from the union of “meta” (prefix that means “beyond”) and “universe.” Something like the universe beyond. The term was originally coined by the science fiction novelist, Neal Stephenson.
Zuckerberg wants his company’s product catalog – social media, virtual reality, and other options for creators and developers – to adapt to a new, 100% immersive, ultra-realistic virtual world. There users can entertain themselves, work or study.
In an interview, Zuckerberg pointed out to The Verge site: “You can think of the metaverse as an embedded internet, where instead of just viewing content, you are on it. And you feel present with other people as if you were in other places, having different experiences that you could not necessarily have in a 2D application or web page, like dancing, for example, or different types of exercises ”.
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