Andrew wrote: “We’re simplifying our brand architecture and shifting away from the Oculus brand for our hardware. Starting in early 2022, you’ll start to see the shift from Oculus Quest from Facebook to Meta Quest and Oculus App to Meta Quest App over time.” The Oculus brand is also being removed from the multiple social experiences produced by those working at the company. Andrew elaborated in his post that: “We’ll also expand Meta Horizon as the brand that will encompass all of our first-party immersive social experiences.You’ve seen this already with Horizon Workrooms and Horizon Worlds. Soon you’ll see us shift from Oculus to Horizon Home, Horizon Venues, Horizon Friends, and Horizon Profile.” The title of Facebook Reality labs has also been changed to Reality Labs, in an effort to “better make the connection that our org is building the technology that will enable the future metaverse,” according to Andrew. This shift away from the namesake of Mark Zuckerburg’s social media platform appears to mark the company-wide charge towards the metaverse project shown off during Facebook Connect. One of the later announcements made by Andrew in the post raises the topic of Facebook accounts, and their requirement in order to access Quest hardware. He wrote that the team at Reality Labs is “working on new ways to log into Quest that won’t require a Facebook account, landing sometime next year,” and emphasized that this was one of the team’s highest priorities. In the past, Mark Zuckerburg said that he had goals of having 1 billion people in VR, and the removal of an account barrier would assist in achieving that lofty goal. It was only earlier this month that a Facebook whistleblower accused the company of severely misleading investors and the public in matters of safety, and of purposefully permitting the presence of political misinformation. While Mark personally addressed matters of privacy and safety during Facebook Connect, saying they’ll be present in the metaverse from day one, many remain skeptical.
