What is Meta?

Meta is the rebranding of Facebook. Similar to how Google previously rebranded into Alphabet, making Google one of many products underneath Alphabet. Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, and more will now be products and services owned by Meta.

Why Facebook is transitioning to Meta

Facebook’s transition to Meta is one of the many steps they are taking to craft the Metaverse. The first steps Facebook took were to acquire Oculus and produce VR hardware mainly for gaming and virtual community-focused applications. Meta’s goal is to be the platform in which users create virtual spaces/worlds for gaming, work, events, and other communal activities. As the future of the internet is being built around the concept of web3, Meta has a first-mover advantage and a strong history of success when it comes to social platforms, that they can focus on building the tools for developers to create compelling experiences.

What this means for the future of Social Media Advertising

Although we can’t say for sure, there is a strong likelihood that if experiences in Facebook’s Metaverse are compelling enough to be adopted into people’s work and casual lives, this will help power Facebook’s data-driven advertising platform. Currently, data is collected from “2-dimensional” interactions (What people like, share, comment on, videos watched, Websites visited, etc…) Collecting data from “3-dimensional” interactions in the metaverse could be a lot more precise (Which worlds people spend time in, What direction they look in virtual spaces, Which objects users engage with, and how they engage with them). It also opens up the possibility of digital ownership. Similarly to how Nike has announced that you will be able to buy Nike shoes and receive a digital representation of those shoes in the metaverse (meaning users can collect physical and virtual items). The concept of owning digital assets could be adopted in some way into Meta’s advertising platform (Limited discount vouchers, Free digital representation of products, buying/creating virtual spaces and selling virtual billboard space to advertisers, etc…)