Why is Facebook now called Meta Platforms?

Facebook has advanced to become the leading social network worldwide in recent years. Facebook has been around since 2004, but with the progressive digitization of the last decade, the relevance of Facebook has continued to increase. At the latest when Facebook bought both WhatsApp and Instagram one after the other, Facebook became an integral part of everyday life for many people. Around 60 million people in Germany use WhatsApp every day, and a similar number are likely to use the combination of Facebook and Instagram.

However, the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, wants to achieve more with his company and on 28.10.2021/XNUMX/XNUMX the company Facebook, not the social network, was founded in MetaPlatforms Inc. renamed.

But what about the renaming of Facebook?

The obvious reason is quickly named. By renaming the parent company from Facebook to Meta, the aim is to ensure that both WhatsApp and Instagram step out of the shadow of Facebook. WhatsApp and Instagram are no longer Facebook, but Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook are meta networks, a nominally small difference.

The less obvious reason lies hidden in the so-called Metaverse. According to Zuckerberg, the Metaverse is the future of the Internet and Facebook and Meta want to orient themselves in this direction at an early stage.

What is the Metaverse anyway?

The Metaverse has experienced an enormous boom in recent months and Mark Zuckerberg is not the only one who sees the future of his own company in the digital space. Also Epic Games, the developer studio behind Fortnite (Reading tip: Age recommendation for Fortnite), and Microsoft, according to their CEOs, will specialize in the Metaverse in the future.

The term metaverse was first mentioned in 1991 in the Neal stephenson published science fiction novel "Snow crash”. In it, Stephenson describes the Metaverse as a digital alternative to the physical world.

Every person becomes an avatar there and life works just like in the real world. At first glance, the Metaverse might remind you of games like Minecraft. However, in the Metaverse there is no goal, there is no way to win. It's just physical life transposed into digital space.

Snow Crash: a novel

• Stephenson, Neal (Author)

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What is the Metaverse?

So the expectations of the Metaverse are enormously high. Matthew Ball, a well-known investor, even published a book about the Metaverse in 2020 and formulated seven characteristics that make the Metaverse particularly special.

1. The Metaverse can never be stopped or paused. It keeps going.
2. it's live In the Metaverse, as well as in the real world, there are time-limited events. However, the Metaverse as a whole takes place in real time.
3. There is no upper limit for the number of participants.
4. The Metaverse has its own economy. Companies and individuals can invest, buy, sell, and get paid for work within the Metaverse.
5. The Metaverse encompasses the digital world as well as the physical. There are also open and closed platforms within the Metaverse.
6. Digital objects are interchangeable within the Metaverse. As an example, he cites objects from video games that today can only be used in the respective game. According to Ball, however, in the metaverse there is always the possibility of using these objects in a different context.
7. The Metaverse is filled with content and "experiences" created by individuals, private groups, or corporations.

Metaverse vs. Internet

The Metaverse differs fundamentally from the Internet as we know it now. Virtual reality will have a major impact on the Internet of the future, and the Internet itself will expand into even more areas of everyday life.

What is amazing, however, is that the leading minds in the industry have agreed on the term metaverse. In the novel Snow Crash, from which the term comes, the Metaverse is not a desirable future, but a dystopian world in which underground organizations rule, states play no role and even large corporations have significantly more power than they should.

So the Metaverse is certainly an interesting innovation, but whether it will become a utopia or a dystopia in the future, nobody can tell at this point in time. So it remains exciting to see how the Metaverse and the companies associated with it will develop over the next few years.

Jen Kleinholz( Founder & Sir Apfelot )

Jens has been running the blog since 2012. He acts as Sir Apfelot for his readers and helps them with technical problems. In his spare time he rides electric unicycles, takes photos (preferably with the iPhone, of course), climbs around in the Hessian mountains or hikes with the family. His articles deal with Apple products, news from the world of drones or solutions to current bugs.

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