On Thursday, October 28, Facebook announced it would be changing its company name to Meta in similar fashion to Google changing its company name to Alphabet Inc. 6 years ago. This name change comes as Facebook looks to advance past it’s social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to move towards a “metaverse”. 

The idea of the metaverse is to further connect the physical world with the virtual world and to advance the idea of a virtual world on top of our own that allows for individuals to work, play and interact with one another in new ways. 

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, announced that its first step to achieving its goals is to create real-world stores where they can showcase their virtual products. They will be primarily showcasing their Oculus Quest virtual reality headsets which are also being renamed to Meta Quest headsets at these stores. 

Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerburg first previewed the fact that his company would become a “metaverse company” back in August of this year, stating that his first goal with his virtual reality headsets is to create virtual reality workspaces. Later that month, Zuckerberg released his app that is now housing his concept called “Horizon Workrooms”. 

In an interview with CBS where Zuckerberg previewed his early model of the Horizon Workrooms app with “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King, he described what he believes to be the future of the internet. 

“I think of the metaverse as the next generation of the internet,” Zuckerberg said. “So, you can kind of think about it as, instead of being an internet that we look at, right, on our mobile phones or our computer screens, it’s an internet that we are a part of, or that we can be inside of.”