Facebook changes its name to ‘Meta’ as it bets on the future of the metaverse

Yahoo Finance’s Daniel Howley reports details on Facebook’s name change as it focuses on metaverse.

Video transcript

JARED BLIKRE: Welcome back. Facebook name getting a face lift. Actually, it's a brand new name. It's called Meta. And Facebook is getting a brand new ticker. It's going to be MVRS starting December 1st as they trade on the NASDAQ. And we got a statement from the company here. This happened only moments ago.

Our corporate structure is not changing. However, how we report on our financials will. Starting with our results for the fourth quarter of 2021, we plan to report on two operating segments, family of apps and Reality Labs. And for more on this, we have Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley. Dan, you've been tracking this for several days, and we've been anticipating this. Is Facebook living up-- or I should say, Meta. Is Meta living up to the new hype here?

DAN HOWLEY: I think they're trying to, right? The metaverse is still very much in its infancy. I don't think very many people really understand what it is or where it's going, including people who work with the metaverse. So just to give you an idea, it really is kind of these interconnected, persistent online worlds that you can access via your headset, whether that's AR or VR, your smartphone, your laptop. Think of it as kind of an extension of the internet, or as Facebook seems to be pointing it, as a new form of internet.

So let me just read you a statement from Zuckerberg as far as what he was talking about and the name change. He said right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can't possibly represent everything that we're doing today, let alone in the future. And over time, I hope that we are seen as a metaverse company. And I want to anchor our work and identity on what we're building towards.

So, in addition to the name change, the company also showed off a slew of different pieces of software that it's working on. It also announced that it's bringing Rockstar Games-- or Rockstar Games, rather, is bringing their Grand Theft Auto San Andreas to the VR via the Oculus Quest. They also showed off-- this is Meta, not Facebook. It's going to take a second to get used to that. But they also showed off some of their new headsets that they're working on, as well as gave hints of the idea for a glasses style interface where instead of wearing a large chunky headset, it would just be something as regular as your old pair of glasses.

So that also is very interesting. I think one of the big issues here is going to be the fidelity of the image when it comes to things like VR and AR and these kinds of headsets. That's something that's still lacking at this point. It'll be interesting to see what they're able to do as far as a single pair of glasses goes with that. And I think it'll also take a lot of buy-in from people to have to wear something while they're doing all of this.

Don't forget we had 3D TVs a little while ago. And yes, the difference in capabilities is clearly there, at least as far as what Facebook or Meta is pointing to now. But people didn't like them, because they had to wear something extra on their face. So it'll be hard to see whether or not people are willing to do that as they start to see what the metaverse is capable of and what the new meta company is capable of. But really interesting changes here to the company.