Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) has officially changed its company name to “Meta.”
The company says its new name reflects its growing ambitions beyond social media. Facebook’s new name is based on the science fiction term “metaverse,” which describes a vision for working and playing in a virtual world.
Facebook has also adopted a new moniker that is similar to the symbol for infinity and plans to change its stock ticker symbol to “MVRS” effective December 1.
In July, the company announced the formation of a team that would work on the metaverse. And in its third-quarter earnings results issued on Monday (October 25), the company announced that it will break out Reality Labs, its hardware division, into its own reporting segment, starting in this year’s fourth quarter.
Over the past few years, the company has ramped up its efforts in hardware, introducing a line of Portal video-calling devices, launching the Ray-Ban Stories glasses and rolling out various versions of its Oculus virtual-reality headsets. The company has indicated that augmented and virtual reality will be a key part of its strategy in coming years.
The company also said this week it’d spend about $10 billion over the next year developing the technologies required for building the metaverse.
Additionally, Meta announced a new virtual reality headset named “Project Cambria.” The device will be a high-end product available at a higher price point than the $299 Quest 2 headset, the company said in a blog post. Project Cambria will be released next year.
The rebrand comes amid a barrage of news reports over the past month after Frances Haugen, a former employee turned whistleblower, released a trove of internal company documents to news outlets, lawmakers and regulators.
The reports show that the company is aware of many of the harms its apps and services cause but either doesn’t rectify the issues or struggles to address them. More documents are expected to be shared daily over the coming weeks.