What is hidden behind the meaning of Meta, the new name chosen by Zuckerberg for the Facebook empire
“We are at the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the internet”, so begins the long letter published by Mark Zuckerberg following the announcement of the new name of his social empire.
Facebook will be called Meta, it’s official. And there is no person in the world who can explain better than Zuckerberg the meaning of the new name of the most known and talked about social network ever.
Meta: the metaverse
The name Meta comes directly from the concept of “metaverse”, a term coined in the nineties for the use of cyberpunk science fiction: in the original concept, the metaverse was imagined as a huge black sphere capable of housing people, stores and entire cities – virtual.
Today the idea of the metaverse becomes reality, and sheds its suggestive literary cloak to embrace a more “practical” sense: Zuckerberg’s metaverse will be a virtual reality shared through the internet, something similar perhaps to MMORPG videogames, but even more “real”.
In recent years, technology has given people the ability to connect and express themselves more and more naturally, writes the founder of Facebook: “When I created Facebook, you could just put text on websites,” then came smartphones with cameras, and the connection between people has changed radically.
“We’ve gone from text to photos, and from photos to video. But it’s not the end of the story,” writes Meta’s CEO.
“The new platform will be even more immersive, an embodied internet where we are no longer mere spectators, but live within the experiences”: this is what Zuckerberg calls the metaverse.
What will Zuckerberg’s metaverse look like?
The image of the hologram appearing in the middle of a spaceship’s control room to communicate with the crew, notwithstanding developments in space exploration, may soon become reality. Or at least, that’s what the Meta project intends to accomplish over the next decade.
“In this future we will be able to instantly teleport ourselves as holograms to be in the office, at a concert with friends, in our parents’ living room,” Zuckerberg claims.
And the ultimate meaning of this is certainly not to spend even more time in front of a screen; rather, the intention is to “improve the quality of this time” and of the interactions that take place via the Internet – and to stop being stuck in traffic just to see someone.
In the Facebook metaverse, it will be possible to do everything: go out with friends, go to school or work, play, create, all while experiencing an unprecedented feeling of presence. It will be like really being there. In the next ten years, Meta’s CEO claims, the new internet will reach a billion people.