It is reported that after trading under the name of "facebook" for ten years, the social media giant is getting rid of the last traces of its old corporate image. On Thursday, they began trading under the new stock code "meta", giving up the "FB" code that had been used before. In October, 2021, Facebook officially changed its name to meta platforms. The company firmly believes that "meta universe" (a new shared virtual field) will replace the mobile Internet.
Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of meta, established Facebook in his dormitory at Harvard University in 2004 as a way for students to meet through the Internet.
At that time, the 19-year-old student didn't know that Facebook would become an integral part of many people's social life. There were nearly 3billion active users every month, and he later acquired instagram and WhatsApp, popular social media applications, constantly enriching his business.
Nearly 20 years after its establishment, his company is continuously investing billions of dollars in metaverse by adding new functions to hardware devices as access points. This is a futuristic idea of a virtual environment that users can use to work, socialize and entertain.
Art Hogan, chief market strategist at national securities in New York, said: "companies that change their official name and stock code are usually trying to send a signal that their basic business model has changed fundamentally. But I'm not sure if there is really any big difference. I still call them Google and Facebook."
Since the beginning of this year, meta's share price has fallen by nearly 42%. At present, they are struggling with the legislators and regulators' criticism of its market power, algorithm decision-making and its supervision of abuse.