Social media giant Facebook surprised the tech space this week by announcing it has officially changed its corporate name to Meta. The news comes after recent reports that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg would be leading the company into new territory by focusing on building its own metaverse.

To those unfamiliar with the concept, metaverses are online virtual worlds where users can interact with each other for both recreational and business purposes. Developers and enthusiasts often describe metaverses as the next evolutionary step in social media, creating more interactive experiences through the use of VR tech. The concept has gained a significant amount of traction over the last year from general consumers and business leaders, especially as the remote/hybrid revolution continues to pick up momentum.

Facebook executives decided to move forward with this corporate  name change to address the company’s restructuring goals, similar to how Google adopted the name Alphabet back in 2015. Along with the name change, signage at Facebook’s California headquarters has been given a new logo that resembles the infinity symbol.

"We're now looking at and reporting on our business as two different segments, one for our family of apps, and one for our work on future platforms.” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during a virtual conference. "And as part of this, it is time for us to adopt a new company brand to encompass everything that we do, to reflect who we are and what we hope to build."

The actual Facebook site, as well as Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Instagram, will still keep their original names. It seems important to note that, although Facebook has already moved forward with this change, it has not developed a metaverse platform, which has some experts suggesting that this announcement may have been premature. The announcement may also be seen as a strategy to direct attention from Facebook’s recent news scandal, which claims Facebook executives knew about the platform's negative effects on mental health, as well as lack of action toward removing online hate speech.

Executives at Facebook appear to be highly confident that the metaverse is the next big online movement, but it remains to be seen if consumers will share the same sentiment.