Facebook's Rebrand Could Come With Rollout Of Brick-And-Mortar Retail
Facebook's rebranded parent company is seeking to stake its claim on the metaverse, but part of that strategy could depend more on the physical world of consumers than Facebook ever did.
Meta has been planning to launch a line of brick-and-mortar stores to sell products focused on augmented reality and virtual reality, the two arenas that are meant to blend online and physical spaces, The New York Times reports. Meta became the name of the umbrella company for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and others on Oct. 28, reflective of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's intent to focus more of the company's business on AR and VR, collectively dubbed the metaverse.
The brick-and-mortar concept has been the subject of serious planning discussions since last year, well before the rebrand from Facebook to Meta, the Times reported. Potential names that had been bandied about for the concept included Facebook Hub, Facebook Commons and Facebook Reality Store before the simpler Facebook Store became the leading candidate — a position now thrown into uncertainty by the rebrand.
Meta is far from alone among tech companies developing consumer-facing commercial real estate. Apple stores have long been among the most sought-after retail tenants, Microsoft had nearly 100 physical stores before closing them last year, and Google opened its first Google Store in June in New York City.
The most popular metaverse product that Facebook produces is the VR headset Oculus Quest 2, which will now be rebranded the Meta Quest 2 as Meta retires the Oculus brand name. It also makes the Facebook Portal videoconferencing device, which will be renamed the Meta Portal and could be featured in any potential retail concept.
The headset, as well as a forthcoming collaboration with Ray-Ban to produce AR-enabled sunglasses, are products of Meta's Reality Labs subdivision, which could be central to the offerings of the potential Meta store, the Times reports. Even now, the store concept isn't guaranteed to proceed, but preliminary plans have been made for the first brick-and-mortar location to be in the Bay Area city of Burlingame, where Reality Labs is based, the Times reports.
The Meta rebranding was criticized by many as an attempt to direct attention away from the series of sobering revelations about its inaction in the face of spreading misinformation and extremism publicized by whistleblower Frances Haugen. A physical retail rollout of products under the Meta banner could certainly give another reason for the public to latch onto the new name.
