Meta, Meh

When I first heard that Mark Zuckerberg wanted to change the name of Facebook, I didn’t quite believe it. Then, I thought “Well, if that isn’t the stupidest business decision since Tesla failed to get Edison’s promise in writing, I don’t know what is.”
I don’t think Zuckerberg’s nearly the genius he’s cracked up to be. Sure, he’s good with computers, but it seemed to me, from watching The Social Network, that he just sort of stumbled onto something big and had the good sense to let it ride. But, I didn’t think he’d actually be stupid enough to do that. I mean, Facebook is still the biggest thing on the internet, and he’s the 3rd richest man in the world, which is no small thing.
But I was curious enough to look it up, since the stupidest thing of all would be to write a blog based just on a Facebook rumor. Turns out, he’s not actually thinking of changing the name of Facebook, just the company that owns Facebook. That makes sense. Halliburton’s gone through so many name changes over the years nobody actually knows what their current name is, although they are probably still doing evil shit all over the world. Lots of people change their names to avoid alimony payments, or to hide from the law. The great American naval hero, John Paul Jones, changed his name when he moved to America, to avoid a murder charge in his native Scotland. His original name was John Paul, but he figured Jones was nice and forgettable.
So, Facebook’s management company will now be known as Meta, which is nice and forgettable.
Zuckerberg says that it’s because he wants to focus on other projects, which is all right by me. Facebook is chugging along, I’ve found my own little comfy corner within it, and the less he’s directly involved, the better it probably is for everybody involved. The main project is something called Metaverse, which sounds to me like an update of a site called Second Life, which was kind of popular for a while before Facebook came along. Everybody will have avatars (which have improved considerably over the last 20 years) and wander around a virtual space, interacting with each other. It might work. After all, the first Dune totally bombed, but the current version is getting rave reviews.
But, Facebook will still be Facebook. Not to worry.