On Thursday October 28, 2021 Facebook changed their name to Meta. This was done in an effort to shift their brand away from strictly social media into an all encompassing virtual world. This is aligned with the company’s ambitions to build a metaverse.

Although unclear what the offerings of Facebook’s metaverse will look like, it seems as though the virtual world will place a heavy emphasis on VR and AR enabled interactions beyond social media. Facebook’s stronghold on social networks and shared virtual communities gives them an opportunity to further this dominance by pushing the boundaries of our connection with the digital world.

Yet, there has been a lot of skepticism surrounding Facebook as the driving force behind the metaverse. This announcement came amidst public scrutiny and political turmoil for the company. In addition, many have concerns with data privacy and massive data collection given the increased personal interactions the metaverse will have as well as the centralization of a company like Facebook.

Trust in Facebook remains low in both protecting individual’s data and being the proprietary constructors of the Metaverse. But, the result of this shift in their business focus will have a positive ripple effect in a number of ways. First, big tech companies similar to Facebook will follow suit. Companies such as Nvidia and Microsoft are already in the process of building their own Metaverse. As these firms enter this market, we will see increased regulation and oversight by the US government on blockchain and metaverse related technologies.

Knowing that big tech is going all-in on the race towards the metaverse, there will be a paradigm shift in focus amongst Web3 and other tech communities to create and build metaverse projects. Individuals unsure of where to spend their time will look at metaverse projects with optimism. This will result in rapid innovation and entrepreneurship in this space. In essence, I believe that the rebrand to Meta will open the eyes of many to the metaverse and spark widespread innovation. Through market effects, some business models will find success in utilizing extended reality through the metaverse while others will not.