MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Meta at Connect 2021, which brings together Facebook’s apps and technologies under one new company brand. Meta’s focus will be to bring the metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses.
The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let audiences share immersive experiences with other people even when they can’t be together — and do things together they couldn’t do in the physical world. It’s the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, and it’s ushering in a new chapter for the company. Mark shared more about this vision in a founder’s letter.
The annual Connect conference brings together augmented and virtual reality developers, content creators, marketers and others to celebrate the industry’s momentum and growth. This year’s virtual event explored what experiences in the metaverse could feel like over the next decade — from social connection, to entertainment, gaming, fitness, work, education and commerce. New tools were also announced to help people build for the metaverse, including Presence Platform, which will enable new mixed reality experiences on Quest 2, and a $150- million investment in immersive learning to train the next generation of creators.
The full Connect keynote and how the metaverse will unlock new opportunities can be accessed here. One can also learn more about the work over the past several months to develop the Meta brand on the design blog.
The corporate structure is not changing, however, how Facebook reports on financials will. Starting with the results for the fourth quarter of 2021, there will be a plan to report on two operating segments: Family of Apps and Reality Labs. They also intend to start trading under the new stock ticker, MVRS, on December 1. Today’s announcement does not affect how they use or share data.
