yahoo news | Mark Ritson: Meta can kill the metaverse. It can’t escape the name Meta’s ambitious bet on the metaverse has finally been buried. After a quiet shutdown of Horizon Worlds in June – the once‑heralded social‑VR platform that was supposed to become the digital infrastructure for a billion users – the $80 billion project Meta poured into the idea is effectively dead. The company’s bold 2021 rebrand from Facebook to Meta, intended to signal a future‑first commitment, now serves as a permanent reminder of that overhyped vision, with the new name constantly resurfacing whenever the firm’s earnings or AI strategy are discussed. The failure was not just technical but cultural. Zuckerberg’s hour‑long 2021 unveiling promised a metaverse that would transform work, commerce, and social life, while the broader marketing and consulting ecosystem eagerly echoed predictions of trillions in value and massive user adoption. Agencies spun out dedicated metaverse practices, brands opened virtual stores, and analysts published optimistic forecasts that never materialised. The result is a brand architecture that, unlike Google’s neutral “Alphabet” holding company, ties the corporate identity to a spectacularly unsuccessful product gamble, turning “Meta” into shorthand for strategic folly. Looking ahead, Meta faces two unappealing paths. It can wait for the name to become semantically neutral – eventually “Meta” might simply denote a large, multifaceted tech corporation, shedding its specific metaverse connotations – or it can undergo another costly rebrand, risking further reputational damage by admitting the first change was a mistake. Either way, the company must grapple with the lingering ghost of a $80 billion bet, while its core products continue under a moniker that once promised a new chapter for the internet but now stands as a cautionary tale about the perils of naming a company after an unfulfilled future. Read more: https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/mark-ritson-meta-can-kill-the-metaverse-it-can-t-escape-the-name #markritson #meta #metaverse #metaplatforms #aistrategy