It was in late 2021 when Facebook — as it was then called — announced that the company is changing its name to Meta. “Meta’s focus will be to bring the metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities and grow businesses,” was the company’s statement. A senior company executive says that the name change was an “overall success”
Name change tempered negative coverage
Meta changed its name when it was grappling with quite a controversial news story. A Facebook whistleblower had released “The Facebook Papers” detailing some of the controversial activities behind the scenes. Three weeks after the story broke, Facebook became Meta. In a Q&A with employees last year, Chris Cox, chief product officer, Meta was asked if the name change was successful. He told employees that he found it had been successful as the name change got more media coverage than the Facebook Papers. According to a report by Business Insider, Cox told employees “It was more than double the volume of the Facebook Papers coverage,” Cox said on the call. Cox also said that the overall coverage was more neutral and positive. He added that the coverage was also “neutral to positive in tone.”
He further added, “That’s the kind of thing that we only could have dreamed of when we did the change in terms of press coverage.”
In terms of metaverse, however, it has been anything but a success story. Meta’s Reality Labs division — one responsible for all things metaverse — has been bleeding money left, right and centre. According to the company’s recent quarterly results, the division lost more than $4 billion in the previous quarter. In the last 18 months, Meta’s metaverse unit has lost close to $21 billion. However, Meta remains undeterred and has no plans to shut down the division or dial down investments.
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