Facebook Inc. is re-christening itself Meta, decoupling its corporate identity from the eponymous social network mired in toxic content, and highlighting a shift to an emerging computing platform focused on virtual reality. “The metaverse is the next frontier,” Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a presentation at Facebook’s Connect conference, held virtually on Thursday. “From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first.”
Facebook’s name change is the most definitive signal so far of the company’s intention to stake its future on a new computing platform -- the metaverse, an idea born in the imaginations of sci-fi novelists. In Facebook’s vision, people will congregate and communicate by entering virtual environments, whether they’re talking with colleagues in a boardroom or hanging out with friends in far-flung corners of the world.
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The company said its stock will start trading under a new ticker, MVRS, on Dec. 1.