The Actual Reason Facebook Renamed Itself

Om Malik:

Some of us are old enough to remember that the reason Mark renamed the company is because the Facebook brand was becoming toxic, and associated with misinformation and global-scale crap. It was viewed as a tired, last-generation company. Meta allowed the company to rebrand itself as something amazing and fresh.

I really served that one up to Om. A fastball right down the middle. I even thought, while writing my post earlier today, to mention that the rebrand was, in truth, surely only and always about the Facebook brand having gone rotten, not any actual belief by Zuckerberg in the “metaverse”. And so “Meta” will never be remembered as the company that spearheaded the metaverse — because the metaverse never was or will be an actual thing — it’s in truth the perfect name for a company that believes in nothing other than its own success.

★ Monday, 28 April 2025