Facebook has announced it will rebrand its parent company to Meta to align with its ambitions to build the ‘metaverse’, an extended reality environment for social and business engagement.
In some ways, the rebrand makes sense. Facebook is now just one of many products or channels of the larger company. Others include Instagram, Messenger, Lightbox, and the VR headsets Oculus.
But there’s another view.
Facebook’s brand strength has dropped in recent years. There’s the alleged tax avoidance, the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, live-streaming of violent events such as the Christchurch shooting, and fake news. The Facebook Papers show that these incidents are not accidental nor unknown by the social media giant.
It will be interesting to see whether Meta becomes part of the vernacular or just another case study for the textbooks.