The company would be called "Meta" going forward, after founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a big announcement.
He said that the parent company would still encompass the same portfolio of brands that it did before, but with a new intent: "to help bring the metaverse to life."
The company was betting on the "metaverse" concept because of the fact that it was being held by the founder.
The move had repercussions. In the months since, the hype for "the metaverse" and its corollaries has skyrocketed.
It was the analysts.
The metaverse has the potential to disrupt almost everything in human life, according to analysts led by equity strategist Simon Powell. The metaverse is an "$800 billion market opportunity" according to the report.
The big publicly-traded video game publishers followed.
Major gaming companies, including "Assassin's Creed" maker and "Final Fantasy" maker Square Enix, have announced new Web3 initiatives: The former introduced NFTs and a coin-based payment system, while the latter declared 2021 to be "the metaverse year"
They were following his lead.
He wants to make sure that the metaverse is a major player in the future, and he's repeatedly claimed that the metaverse is the successor to the current mobile internet.
The future metaverse was demonstrated in the October video presentation introducing Meta.
The video depicted a world where people jump in and out of a 3D virtual space, like those in "The Matrix" and "Ready Player One."
One of the virtual spaces depicted in a video from Meta.
It's called Meta.
The creator of the digital space met one of the floating avatars in LA.
At one point during the conversation, a friend was supposed to join them, but the friend's friend's virtual friend pulled up a 2D video chat to connect to them. She's out in the real world and unable to join, but she wanted to show off a piece of art she's seen in the real world. It seems like it could have happened over a piece of technology we already use.
The large robot seen above is one of the avatars that look realistic to the person they represent. Rather than playing a game, everyone is hanging out in a three-dimensional chat room, which is more similar to "Second Life" or "PlayStation Home" than "Fortnite."
It's unclear how anyone in the demo is connecting to the space, or interacting with it, but it appears to be virtual reality headsets, a crucial component of the vision for the metaverse that also serves as a business opportunity.
It's a vision of a future world that takes many long-existing concepts, like shared online worlds and digital avatars, and combines them with recently emerging trends, like digital art ownership through NFT technology and digital "tipping" for creators.
It's a vision that takes our existing reality, where you can already hang out in 2D or 3D virtual chat rooms with friends who are or are not using virtual reality headsets, and tacks on more opportunities for monetization and advertising.
Someone is going to sell hardware to access this future, and someone is going to create software that is popular, and that's when Meta is going to be a leader.
It's no surprise that the gold rush is on from investors and companies in the tech world: Meta's video, and the commitment of Facebook to "the metaverse" convinced them that it's the next golden goose.
Email Ben Gilbert at bgilbert@insider.com or follow him on social media. Sources can be kept anonymous. Use a non-work device to reach out. Please only send PR pitches by email.
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