I cannot let the name change of ‘Facebook’, to ‘Meta’, go uncommented.
They are not the first to undergo a name change, for a range of reasons. Mostly they are to escape bad publicity, sometimes because it made some strategic sense to do so given the nature of the business had changed, and I suspect a few because of a brainfart in the boardroom.
Google changed to Alphabet, Philip Morris changed to Altria, Tribune Publishing (owner of several major newspapers in the US) changed to Tronc, then changed back to Tribune Publishing, (unexplainable) Blackwater changed to Xe Services, then on to Academi (no escape from a nasty history) Quikster changed to Netflix, and the list goes on.
Meta is an odd word, being self-referential, and often the first syllable of other words that mean change, such as metamorphose, and metabolism. It is also a word the few late teens I know use as an expression of surprise, or pleasure: even they cannot adequately define it.
Nearly 5 years ago, I wrote a post focussed on the ‘Moats‘ Facebook had built around itself. This latest move is one that adds a further dimension to the moat analogy, throwing a wide moat around the whole Facebook empire, while at the same time, attempting to separate the individual components of the castle inside the moat into (supposedly) more independent entities. It least, that may be the theory, although I see no change happening inside the moat, just more defence of the status quo.
Perhaps it is just a defensive move in response to the series of damaging leaks to the New York Times and other outlets by former senior executive Frances Haugen. Make the eggs that much harder for regulators to unscramble?
I watched Mark Zuckerberg explain the change in a video, and remain somewhat confused. He claimed the driver of the change was his vision of the future, and the technologies that will deliver it. I am very wary of that fluffy, tech friendly story. The current technologies and impact of all the Facebook stable of products are very similar. They collaborate to deliver some really nasty stuff kept hidden amongst the many useful tools. All this in the name of ‘connection’.
Will Meta take some of the pressure off Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg? I doubt it, but I also suspect if you asked Zuckerberg, and managed to get the truth out of him, he really could not give a toss.
