5 things you may have missed about Facebook’s name change to Meta

Posted on by Perfectporridge in Social Signals: Weekly Newsletter

5 things you may have missed about Facebook’s name change to Meta

  1. Facebook the app is still called Facebook. The app’s name isn’t changing.
  2. Meta is the parent company that owns Oculus, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook app, and lots more. Just as Alphabet is the umbrella company who owns Google, Meta is the umbrella company that owns Facebook et al.
  3. Meta is short for metaverse, which is not a place, product, or idea owned by Facebook. The term metaverse has been around quite a while, and there is only one metaverse: “It is the sum total of all publicly accessible virtual worlds, real-time 3D content and related media that are connected on an open global network, controlled by none and accessible to all.”
  4. The word Metaverse is similar to the word Internet. You wouldn’t call a website the internet, so you shouldn’t call a world like Roblox the metaverse. However, like all early days of emerging technologies that are affected by culture and adoption, we won’t really know the proper terminology for these things for some time. It can and will change.
  5. Facebook renaming itself Meta is like Twitter renaming itself “social media.” Yes, Twitter is social media, but it’s not all of social media. I also think it was a genius and visionary move, albeit a complicated one. I wrote about that last week here.

😎 Avatars and Holograms Are Coming to Your Work Video Calls

Last week all the conversation was about Meta (formerly known as Facebook) and how the company is pivoting its vision to the metaverse. This week Microsoft introduced its own video about the metaverse worth watching (it’s only 2 minutes!) and more importantly, shared some updates coming for the primary metaverse world for a lot of us – Microsoft Teams.

Key quote: “Microsoft Teams will get new 3D avatars in a push toward a metaverse environment, and you won’t need to put a VR headset on to use them. These avatars can literally represent you both in 2D and 3D meetings, so you can choose to have an animated version of yourself if you’re not feeling like turning your webcam on.”

These updates for MS Teams will work on any device, including your phone or laptop, and will be rolling early next year. But it’s not just Teams that is looking toward a more collaborative future of work. This week Cisco launched WebEx Hologram. And Facebook’s Horizon Workrooms introduced a host of 2D + 3D collaborative work features last week.https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Qw6UCwCt4bE?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

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See you on the internet!
Greg

Published by Perfectporridge

Greg crafts creative strategies for brands rooted in consumer insights, creative technology, PR, social platforms, content strategy, and the cultures that knit them together.