Facebook has announced its second rebrand (the first was from THE facebook, to just Facebook). Of course it only affects the parent company, and the website and app will still be called Facebook. Kind of like Alphabet is the parent company of Google. Meta, the new name, means what has been predicted for a while - that the company is working on a Metaverse.

If you're a Web 3.0 fan, you probably heard this name floating around. In the ideal, romantic, web 3.0 fueled form it's a decentralised, online universe, a new internet where people meet, interact and purchase things (NFT's) from each other directly.

Now that Facebook is doing it, of course it will not be decentralised. Quite the opposite really. And with the incoming market crash on cryptocurrencies, it seems like the big business will once again win against the romantic vision of decentralisation.

The Meta logo is actually quite good, and I especially love the presentation of how their various brands merge together to form the M / infinity sign.

The future of social media?

Will our future really be all VR, like in the "Ready: Player One" movie? It sounds dystopian, and not really as much fun. It deprecates human connection, real interactions and drags people deeper into the digital world. Isolation under the new virtual, social construct will lead to even more depression and anxiety.

I don't believe it's a good direction to "connect people together".

But of course we'll just have to wait and see.

But paraphrasing what Facebook stated:

"The future will be built by all of us. But it will be monetized by Facebook."

Liked the article? Share it!