Facebook is now Meta. World’s most dominant social network has its eyes set on ambitious new pastures. The Mark Zuckerberg-led social media giant will now focus on building a ‘metaverse’. Zuckerberg himself made the announcement late on October 28. The announcement on Facebook’s ambitious new step sent the social media in a tizzy.
From understanding what is metaverse to planning how to maximise one’s presence in it, people were searching all sort of things.
The increased awareness as well as excitement around the word ‘meta’ proved to be a windfall for a company. Meta Materials Inc. A Canadian company, found itself gaining monetary benefit due the buzz surrounding the word. Shares of the company, which goes by the ticker name MMAT, rose by whopping 26 per cent in after-hours trading as people mistook it to be the rebranded entity of Facebook.
This was followed by 4.8 per cent gain during trading hours.
The company now has a market cap of $1.3 billion.
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Facebook itself was, quite expectedly, in the centre of a fierce debate online after the rechristening. Many wondered why the hugely popular social media network would give such a strong brand name.
Zuckerberg also tried to answer this in his lengthy Facebook post about the name change. “We are at the beginning of the next chapter for the internet..” his note began.
“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. In the metaverse, you’ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine — get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create — as well as completely new experiences that don’t really fit how we think about computers or phones today. We made a film that explores how you might use the metaverse one day,” he explained.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook profile now describes him as ‘Founder and CEO at Meta’.
