In October last year, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that social media giant Facebook was transitioning to Meta Platforms, there were questions aplenty. Was it done to escape the regulatory blizzard that it had found itself in? Or was it about tapping into the promising metaverse space and reaping the first-mover advantage? Sascha Kraus, professor of management at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy with expertise on the subject of digital transformation, has some answers. Edited excerpts from the interview: According to you, what is the reason behind the change in name and identity by Facebook? First of all, it is not the social network Facebook that has changed its name but only its parent company. It includes not only Facebook itself and its Messenger, but also other social media brands—Instagram and WhatsApp—as well as Oculus, one of the largest manufacturers and developers of virtual reality glasses and devices, and other companies as subsidiaries. In view of this diversity of activities, it makes perfect sense not to call the parent company the same as the largest, but definitely struggling, brand. The new name is nothing more than a gigantic bet on a next digital frontier called metaverse—the next generation…
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