Farewell, Facebook. Hello Meta.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday that Facebook the company is changing its name to Meta to reflect its growing focus on the metaverse.
He made the announcement during the company's annual Connect conference streaming Thursday.
"Our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can't possibly represent everything we're doing today let alone the future," Zuckerberg said.
Though its vision is expanding to virtual spaces where people interact via digital avatars, Facebook said it is not changing its corporate structure.
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The rebranding of one of the world's most powerful and best-known companies comes as Facebook is embroiled in a public relations crisis over a cache of documents leaked by former product manager Frances Haugen and provided to Congress.
A consortium of 17 U.S. news organizations, including USA TODAY, obtained the redacted versions of those documents that provide a rare glimpse inside the company.
Zuckerberg said earlier this week that the coverage of those documents has painted a “false picture” of the company.
In a statement, Forrester vice president and research director Mike Proulx said the company's name change doesn't change its systemic issues.
"If Meta doesn’t address its issues beyond a defensive and superficial altitude, those same issues will occupy the metaverse," he said.
Zuckerberg used the occasion to take another swipe at corporate rival Apple, decrying experiences that are "more tightly controlled than ever" with "stifling" taxes on creative ideas. Both sides vying to dominate the next phase of the internet publicly tussle over how user data is collected. Changes Apple has made have undercut Facebook.
"This is not the way that we are meant to use technology," he said. "The metaverse gives us an opportunity to change that if we build it well."
The Verge first reported the company was considering a rebranding.
Zuckerberg told The Verge that the crisis engulfing Facebook “had nothing to bear on this."
"Even though I think some people might want to make that connection, I think that’s sort of a ridiculous thing," he said. "If anything, I think that this is not the environment that you would want to introduce a new brand in.”
This story is developing.
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