↑On October 28, Facebook employees changed their logo to their headquarters in California.
On October 28, the US social media giant Facebook announced that it had officially changed its name to "Meta", revealing its founder Zuckerberg's ambition to build a social platform that went far beyond its world's largest social platform. The name change is a "cut" with the crisis-ridden Facebook platform, and it is also a rebranding of the company as a forward-looking virtual world creator.
However, such a cutting netizen buys it? And will the rebranding, which has been questioned as a "cosmetic" repair, be successful?
Facebook changed its name to "cutting" to see how netizens react
After the news of Facebook's name change came out, it immediately caused a hot discussion on social media, which caused a lot of ridicule. Some jokes and memes are just light and funny. For example, the famous talk show host "Treva" Trevor Noah joked: "It takes a little time to get used to saying 'he is extreme in a Meta group'." "Many people's first reaction is the same as Triwa, thinking that the Facebook platform will change its name. In fact, this name change is only a change of the parent company's name, and the Facebook platform will continue to retain its original name.
↑ Zuckerberg.
Some netizens reacted to this name change more black and serious. For example, scientist Matt Bretz likened the "torture" used by the CIA to extract confessions of suspected terrorists after 9/11, known as "enhanced interrogation," and "'Facebook' renamed 'meta' solves a similar problem." ”
Even some companies have joined the ridicule of the new name. The BRITISH account of discount retail giant Aldi said: "It is better to change our name as well", accompanied by "Betta".
Others have concluded that Meta, Apple, Google and Amazon (Meta, Apple, Google, Amazon), the four major technology companies combined, are former President Trump's famous words MAGA (make America great again).
↑ Weibo netizens complained that Meta's new logo "is not plagiarism".
Some Chinese netizens jokingly said that after the renaming of Meta, this is not Li Jiaqi's famous saying "buy it". Some netizens also complained that Facebook is "don't face it", and its new logo is not a copy of the Logo of WeChat video number.
The renaming of two birds with one stone: shake off the past that needs to be shaken off, and step into the future of longing
Earlier this month, Zuckerberg said the company would shift to a "metaverse" through virtual reality devices (VR). People can travel in this virtual world, attend work meetings, shop in virtual stores, and socialize in virtual gatherings.
Experts point out that the name change and its new business highlights the company's attempt to integrate its companies, including Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram and Oculus, into a more organic whole to attract more investors and talent.
↑ The virtual world that Zuckerberg shows.
However, the name change is not only about the future that Zuckerberg aspires to, but also the past he wants to get rid of. The Facebook whistleblower incident has been called the biggest challenge and crisis facing Zuckerberg and his company. Former Facebook employee Francis Hogan exposed thousands of pages of internal material showing how the company and its founders were mercenary and ignored user security, exposing fundamental flaws in the platform's design, algorithms, and policies. This is the latest "straw" of the Facebook crisis. In recent years, Facebook has seen a series of scandals, including the 2016 "Russian meddling election" and the Cambridge Analytica crisis of the British company.
As a result, as soon as the news of the name change came out, critics quickly spoke out in condemnation, reminding people of another similar name change incident. At that time, the tobacco company Phillip Morris was exposed to know that cigarettes were harmful to people's health, and the company adopted the crisis strategy of changing its name. Democratic lawyer Mark Elias cautioned: "Don't forget that Phillip Morris also continued to sell carcinogenic cigarettes after changing her name to Altria. ”
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Facebook isn't the first Silicon Valley company to change its name and rebrand. In 2015, Google changed its parent company name to Alphabet, forming a group that is not just a search engine, but also includes Android smartphones, driverless car company Waymo, and branches of life sciences. Google was because the Google name was no longer enough to cover its business, and that name change also successfully fulfilled expectations.
For Facebook, the best development of the Meta brand is to follow Alphabet's path. But experts point out that after the Facebook whistleblower incident, the two "old brands" of Facebook and Zuckerberg will have a hard time changing their names. Meta's challenge today is to convince investors, employees, and its users that the company's business is not just social media, that its new brand will behave differently than in the past, and that this name change is not just a "cosmetic" tinkering over the reputation caused by the scandal.
↑ U.S. Democratic Congressman Ocasio Cortez called Facebook "an incredibly devastating impact on liberal societies and democracy."
Manfredi Ricard, chief global strategy officer at consultancy Interbrand, also noted that for Meta, "the biggest opportunity is to sort out its brand settings and show that they are moving in new directions." And the biggest risk is that nothing really changes. ”
Alan Adamson, a veteran brand executive and founder of MetaForce, points out that success is most likely to be achieved when the company aggressively expands into a range of new, clear businesses and quickly moves from old to new.
However, Facebook's business shift has not yet become a reality, with almost all of its revenue coming from advertising revenue from Facebook's platform. This means that Meta's business will shift to virtual reality and selling equipment, which will require huge investments and years of hard work.
Red Star News reporter Lin Rong
Edited by Zhang Xun
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