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Meta: A Social Technology Company
- _yoqn 5y agoHopefully this is a public announcement that Mark Zuckerbarf has indeed lost his mind.
- jacobmischka 5y agoThe video announcement is extremely wild to me. It is essentially just Zuckerberg talking to you directly for an hour and twenty minutes, with occasional interviews with others. It's like a full-length feature film in both length and production quality, with an emotionless main character and dystopian plot.
- browningstreet 5y agoHe looks even more rendered than Roy Kent.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- adventured 5y agoThe trustbusters will never find you now Facebook. Facebook who? There's nobody here by that name.
- sbarre 5y agoI hate it.
- asteroidbelt 5y agoThat's quite emotional response to something quite unrelated to your life. You don't like a company X, you don't use its products, that's it. Hate is destructive.
- cronix 5y agoHate might be strong, but this is kind of like naming your tech company "computer." "Meta" is used across so many industries in the tech sector, and outside. Now it's tied to the stink of "facebook."
- kingkawn 5y agoPedantry ain’t gonna save anyone from anything Neither a prejudice against “emotions”
- asteroidbelt 5y agoI didn't see any pedantry, and nobody here needs saving (except from themselves).
- AccountToUse 5y agoYou are picking up extra shifts on the Facebook PR defense today. I like the aggressive attitude. See you back at the Meta offices tomorrow! Can't wait for the company Halloween party over VR.
- tailspin2019 5y agoNot the parent, but I hate Facebook because of the negative impact it had on my psychology, feeding my depression and anxiety for years before I broke free and stopped using it. That was about 10 years ago. They seem to have only gotten worse since then in many ways. And I was an adult when I started using it. I can’t imagine what some of these intrusive social media products are doing to kids. So I dislike and no longer use Facebook. And also, I do hate it. I’m usually a pretty positive person and would rarely use the word “hate” in respect of another person. I reserve that word for very few scenarios. But I have to say that in this case it’s perfectly fitting.
- asteroidbelt 5y agoThis is an attitude of blaming everyone else but yourself. Obese? Hate Coca-Cola. Lung cancer? Hate Philip Morris. Broke a leg in car crash? Hate BMW. Depressed? Hate Facebook. Facebook is just a tool. How you use it, it is your responsibility.
- sabhiram 5y agoNothin worse than a facebook meta verse.
- canniballectern 5y agoI bet this will be generally effective at shielding their other properties from bad news about Facebook. For ordinary people, "WhatsApp is owned by Meta" is going to feel really different from "WhatsApp is owned by Facebook".
- zamadatix 5y agoMaybe but I'd be surprised. How many (both tech folks or news articles) really associate Fitbit/Waymo/DeepMind primarily with Alphabet instead of Google? Even clicking a recent story which refers to it as an Alphabet subsidy they reference it as "DeepMind, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet,".
- tailspin2019 5y agoSadly, I think you’re right, given a long enough time frame. It’s probably a smart move on Facebook’s part. Doesn’t stop them being terrible though.
- pjerem 5y ago> Doesn’t stop them being terrible though. Well, it depends on if they want to keep the Meta name clean from scandals. But I doubt they manage too. It’s a company DNA issue at this point.
- rexreed 5y agoWill this work, or will this just be like Google's Alphabet, which the general person-on-the-street doesn't know or care about?
- hellbannedguy 5y ago"Let's change our brand. We will get the suckers to think we are creating a better digital future!" "We will continue to make people more miserable, and me wealthier?" (I like FB groups. It's not all bad. I do believe the company, and their acquisitions, are not good for adolescents psyche, or even most adults up to 40.)
- MandieD 5y agoHeck, it seems to be doing some of its worst damage to the over-60 crowd. Me, 20 years ago: I wish Dad would try to learn how to use a PC so he could understand what I’m studying. Me, 10 years ago: I wish Dad would try to learn how to use the Internet so I wouldn’t have to manage increasingly digital regular personal business stuff for him now that Mom’s gone. Me, today: I am delighted that Dad never took an interest in the online world and will happily serve as a phone to Internet proxy for him the rest of his life, and Snapfish makes good money off me now that I’ve presented my dad with the stereotypical reason his generation started using FB: a grandchild.
- onion2k 5y agoMark probably wanted to call it "The Meta".
- rexreed 5y agoI hear dystopia.com is a domain name that might be available for a good price. It probably is a better fit for the company brand anyways.
- user3939382 5y agoDYSTOPIA - Digital Yoke Syndication Technology over Public Internet Access
- strin 5y agoSo meta
- ldbooth 5y agoWithout "-data" meta struck me as corporate appropriation of slang. 'Hella' would be more entertaining.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- duck 5y agoMain thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29029317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29029317
- iszomer 5y agoIt's only fitting to now call it The Meta Data company.
- obviouslynotme 5y agoThis is honestly so on the nose that it has to be the origin.
- drewcon 5y agoThe logo is an Infinity Pringle. Cannot unsee.
- monkeybutton 5y agoLooks like one of the old Visual Studios logos to me.
- drewcon 5y agoIt rotates in the third dimension.
- boringg 5y agoIm so bored of this universe, time to jump into the next one via meta.
- boringg 5y agoApparently it should read Zuckerberg is so bored of Facebook that he jumped to meta.
- endisneigh 5y agoan interesting idea but the technology just isn't there. even if the technology were here, ultimately the things people enjoy involve reality - eating, vacations, traveling, etc. I'd go the other extreme actually and make some sort of "superreality" if you ask a million people "what brings you joy" - the vast majority of the answers will involve spending time with other people in person. video games, social media, etc. only serve as a gateway to reality. a "metaverse" would ultimately be at odds with this.
- miketery 5y agoEh, the tech isn't there until it is (PalmPilot/iPhone). An example of something that's already here: call of duty. Spending time with others while casually playing is a fun time. It's challenging, requires communication, you shoot the shit, laugh, drink, etc. I already refer to it as plugging in. Sure I prefer a lake house, or skiing in the mountains, but that's expensive, and not accessible to most. I think too if the environment trends into more chaotic areas you can expect people to spend more time inside, thus more demand for digital experiences.
- murat124 5y agoIs that what we call to "Advertisement Company" now?
- bluetwo 5y agoScrew that guy.
- kgwgk 5y agoMeth could have been more fitting.
- dont__panic 5y agoMeta (previously Facebook) is the ultimate social manipulator. Your site is losing popularity to a new social media app for phones? Buy that app. Make it basically the same as your version of social media. Your previously purchased app is losing popularity to an app devoted to ephemeral videos and pictures? Shamelessly copy that app's functionality in every app you own, and even make an exact duplicate app to commodify that feature. Run the competitor into the ground when they refuse to sell to you. Your collection of almost-the-same-social-media-sites is threatened by a foreign competitor? Lobby for that foreign competitor to be banned from one of the largest single-country markets in the world. That doesn't work? Spread FUD about the foreign competitor's evil. That's doesn't work? Lobby for intense regulation in the social media space to prevent any competitor from ever showing up again. A series of scandals, leaks, and general scummy profit-seeking behaviour sullies your name even among tech illiterate folks? Change your name so those people can't keep track of what's going on and launder your reputation. I can't stand Meta. I think Zuckerburg might just be the antichrist (mostly kidding on this one). But I have to hand it to him: he is very savvy at this whole business thing.
- gotostatement 5y agoI agree but relax with the antichrist stuff, we don't want the justifiable hatred of him to turn into antisemitism like it already is in the conspiracy circles
- nowherebeen 5y agoI wouldn’t really call it savvy. Most people can think of these tactics but many people wouldn’t actually do it. The difference is he doesn’t care about unfairly screwing other people over for his own personal gain. I bet you he rationalizes it like it’s just competition. A multibillion dollar company that can hire 10,000 with a snap of a finger vs a million dollar startup. Yup, just competition.
- cercatrova 5y agoGenuinely curious, what part of the parent comment is "unfairly screwing other people over for his own personal gain"? Seems like ordinary business moves to me to buy up competitors. The competitors are paid pretty large sums for their sale so not sure who's being screwed over here.
- jumby 5y agosnooze
- Covzire 5y agoThey could have done a lot more for their brand's image by removing the forced FB integration with Oculus.
- pphysch 5y agoFacebook continues its transformation from a website to a video game. They created React to turn the static web into a real-time experience. They realized the browser isn't meant to be a game engine, so they are developing another "web" called the Metaverse, which is really just a big distributed video game. It will be successful i.e. addict hundreds of millions of people. If you thought Facebook proper had negative social effects, wait for the Metaverse to fully roll out... "Optimizing" the human experience has its limits.
- the-dude 5y agoHow different were the reactions to Alphabet, which on the surface was the exact same move?
- throwawaycities 5y agoGoogle created Alphabet as an umbrella company so that Google search would be isolated legally from all their other non-money making projects. There was no shift in the company mission/focus. Facebook the company is rebranding to Meta. Unlike Google/Alphabet this move marks a shift in the company focus from Facebook as the company’s main product to developing products for the Metaverse.
- WalterSear 5y agoWas Alphabet created to distract people from bad behaviour? Did it seem like Google leadership created it because they got bored with their dayjobs?
- the-dude 5y agoDo you disagree it was the same move? Maybe they had incredible foresight.
- takeda 5y agoIn that case didn't they make the change too early?
- EmilioMartinez 5y agoPerhaps FB made it too late
- kiryin 5y agoI sincerely hope this does not work and they continue to carry the stigma they've rightfully earned.
- topaz0 5y agoWill we start talking about MAANG now?
- Swenrekcah 5y agoNetflix was always to small to be included so now the acronym is MAGA
- pphysch 5y ago4D chess. Unbelievable. /s
- wave_function 5y agoWithout "F" in the acronym, maybe Microsoft can be added to the list!
- corysama 5y agoMANGA!
- Sommer 5y agoTime to rebrand as MANGA
- topaz0 5y agoI guess it should be Alphabet in there instead of google, so it's like AMANAM
- agumonkey 5y agoSorry to pass for a semantic Luddite, but "social", "technology" and "company" all in one title, is something I'm not thrilled to read.
- corysama 5y agoRelated: "Facebook's metaverse spending will top $10 billion this year" https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/facebook-metaverse-10-billion-dollars https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/facebook-metaverse-10-bil...
- tarkin2 5y agoWhen the marketing outpaces the product call me skeptical. So the metaverse. Instead of websites (or social media accounts) interacting using links, we'll live in some AR reality and interact some other way? Sounds hand-wavy. Sound a mix between a bored tech billionaire searching for a new venture and a distraction from awful business practices. I don't think Facebook even have a good reputation for innovation. So now Zuck's throwing ideas out to a swarm of marketers, while facebook prints money in the basement with continually dodgy business practices.
- paxys 5y agoI can't figure out if Zuck and the rest of Facebook leadership are actually bought into the whole metaverse nonsense or simply using it as a distraction from the current image issues for the brand. Facebook is and always will be a data collection and advertising company. No amount of VR side hobbies will change that.
- saddlerustle 5y agoFacebook's earnings stated they're going to be burning a large fraction of their net income on it going forward, so it seems like it's hardly a hobby.
- gfodor 5y agoYou wrote a lot of wishful thinking here. Within a few years much of our day to day interactions with others will be modulated via sensory override devices, and Facebook wants to "win" at that. Ignore it at your peril.
- qnsi 5y agowasnt this said 5 years ago? I dont know anyone who owns a vr set
- paxys 5y agoRemember when Google Glass was supposed to take over the world? Then Magic Leap. Then HoloLens. Then Oculus. And the countless online worlds since Second Life? This entire industry has been a few years away from mainstream success for decades now. All of it is ultimately a tech showcase without a product use case.
- gfodor 5y agoProduct use case is eliminating the need for physical co-presence to experience being together. It's going to happen, soon, so don't let the mis-predictions you cite mislead you (which, btw, weren't made by me, since mine are grounded in falsifiable metrics of social presence delivery.) You're confusing "hardware you wear on your face" with the technology stack which eliminates the need for physical proximity to deliver the feeling of unmediated communication.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dustinmoris 5y agoFacebook’s “Meta” rebrand will stick as much as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Edge.
- jasonhansel 5y agoTheir metaverse is an extension of the physical world, except controlled perpetually by a single company with a history of trying to crush or buy out competitors, enabling a genocide, and doing lasting damage to some users' mental health. What could possibly go wrong?
- yewenjie 5y agoInteresting that they don't own neither of https://meta.org https://meta.org or https://meta.io https://meta.io domains.
- guerrilla 5y agoWell, you got one out of two: https://meta.org https://meta.org says Meta, a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative project, is a biomedical research discovery tool that analyzes & connects millions of scientific outputs to give you a comprehensive view into science. and The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is an organization established and owned by Meta, Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan with an investment of 99 percent of the couple's wealth from their Facebook shares over their lifetime.
- crb 5y agoAnd conveniently, as of an hour ago, meta.org is being sunset: https://cziscience.medium.com/meta-transition-5f66b1fae475 https://cziscience.medium.com/meta-transition-5f66b1fae475
- toast0 5y agoAlso conveniently, Meta Inc controlled meta.com since maybe 2015 (the internet archive page seems to only have the titles for some time) and was merged with the Chan Zuckerberg Institute in 2017. Disclosure: worked at WhatsApp until 2019; was unaware of meta.com/meta.org until today
- cblconfederate 5y agoSome "Chun, David INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES" owns the meta trademark. No mention what industry it is for, not even sure if it's possible to trademark a common word. Which shows that FB is using this meta thing to distract from their brand but not for much else.
- crumpled 5y agoNow they can say that hackers only made off with "Meta data". (Sorry)
- zw123456 5y agoI never Meta bigger jerk than Mark Zuckerberg. I mean obviously whatever name they came up with will get ridiculed, but they are just begging for it. The late night comedians are going to have a field day tonight.
- Rapzid 5y agoAm I the only person who immediately thought "metadata".. As in all the data they collect and weaponize against you?
- ben7799 5y agoRebranding to try to appear diverse, but... Income: 99% from advertising on the social media apps? All this other stuff is cute hobbies they blow some of their profits on.
- gfodor 5y agoFacebook tried to buy and takeover the term "Internet", but failed given its widespread use, so they knew it was important to not delay in taking over the term for the thing many early adopters believe will be similarly significant.
- secfirstmd 5y agoMetasploit. Metadata.
- akomtu 5y agoMeth: A Social Addiction Company. Presented by a archetypical nihilist with fish eyes.
- AzzieElbab 5y agoBye FAANG, Hello MANGA
- qnsi 5y agogoogle is called alphabet now, so MANAA
- AzzieElbab 5y agoMamaa
- jacquesm 5y agoIt's a bit early for a whitewash, does this mean that we've now seen all the bad news from FB that we should expect? To make it easier I always link the name of the entity to the old name to ensure that their past stays with them. So Blackwater, Xe and Academi are all the same to me, no matter how hard they try to twist their way out of it, ditto for Alphabet and Google, Accenture and Andersen, Worldcom and MCI, Philip Morris and Altria and so on. It's akin to someone moving to the next town over and changing their name, a companies' past should stay with it, rather than that we allow them to whitewash it and treat their reputational wreckage as just another expense item.
- ssss11 5y agoWhile I think fb’s name didn’t make sense once they bought IG, WA etc and should have changed it, I also agree there’s more in store for them and the timing of this doesn’t matter. Everyone will know meta = fb for a long time to come. I don’t see a future where they play a large part of web3, the meta verse or whatever you want to call it. Their entire business is built in predatory ads and that is not the future. New generations move on. ( If it is we have a bleak future)
- AccountToUse 5y agoMeta is Hebrew for death, Swedish for Meth. Meta is a great corporate name for Facebook because it let's you choose your preferred analogy.
- __void 5y agoin Italian means "goal" or "half" (with an accent on the a)
- sabhiram 5y agoJust keep calling it Facebook. They don't get to decide what it is called, we do :)
- ChrisArchitect 5y ago[dupe] merge with main discussion over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29029317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29029317