Facebook company announces rebrand to ‘Meta’; Oculus brand to become Reality Labs


During their Connect 2021 yesterday, Facebook announced that the company is rebranding to ‘Meta’. The goal behind this rebrand is to announce the company’s change in direction from being a collection of social media apps to a collection of apps and technologies that form a ‘metaverse’.

Meta will focus towards building a metaverse that will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences. Users will not only get a visual experience, but also get the feeling of being in it. They plan to achieve this by using a combination of apps and technologies, such as VR, AR and Smart Glasses.

The company confirmed that the names of the apps — Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, will remain the same.

Oculus to become Reality Labs

Along with this, Oculus is also undergoing a rebrand to ‘Reality Labs’. The rebranding will better reflect the company’s changed vision of building the technology that will enable the future metaverse. The rebranding will also be reflected in their current products, including Oculus Quest from Facebook being renamed to ‘Meta Quest’ and the Oculus App to ‘Meta Quest App’. Another feature that Reality Labs is currently working on is the ability to log into Quest without requiring a Facebook account.

This is not the first time a tech giant has restructured their company under a larger entity that owns other smaller companies. Google is one such company that restructured under a new company called ‘Alphabet‘ back in 2015. Meta will serve a similar purpose, except it will now function under two operating segments: Family of Apps and Reality Labs.

To get more information about the rebranding, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg explains about it in detail in his Founder’s Letter 2021.