Philip Rosedale Aims to Make High Fidelity the Repository for Metaverse Identity - Direct Challenge to Facebook's VR Bid?

Philip Rosedale has a new post on the High Fidelity blog announcing a feature his startup will offer -- basically, a universal repository for virtual reality identities, anything from a Facebook-connected real name, to a totally fictional avatar:

To make this possible, High Fidelity will run a global service that lets you optionally store and validate identity information (such as your true RL name, a unique avatar name, or proof of connection to other identity services like Twitter or Facebook), and then also lets you selectively show this information to other people in the virtual world, regardless of which location/server you are currently in. You won’t have to use it, but it will hopefully be useful for many people, and will be one of the ways that we will be able to make money as a business.

Much more here. If I'm reading this right, a service like this (if it works) will address the problem of distrust of identity between avatars -- and concern over maintaining privacy in VR -- which will become even greater and even more important when Facebook-backed Oculus Rift launches to the mass market. To wit:

A ‘metaverse’ of connected Internet servers run by different people and containing different parts of the virtual world poses an additional challenge: Not only do you need to have the choice when and to whom to disclose parts of your identity, you also cannot always trust the particular server you are ‘inside’ with different aspects of your identity. This is similar to visiting a new website and being unwilling to give credit card information, or unwilling to login using Twitter or Facebook, until you understand and trust the site.

By buying Oculus Rift, Facebook evidently seeks ownership of this process -- as Raph Koster points out -- so it strikes me that Philip is proposing a direct competitor that offers numerous additional options beyond whatever Facebook will offer when it mass market launches Oculus Rift. Just my initial take, at least.

Philip's proposal is open for adjustment and comments, by the way, which you can offer here.

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Comments

[Ciaran_Laval]

This can very definitely be seen as a challenge to Facebook. To a degree Facebook have tried to get into this game with Facebook comments.

Oculus Rift will be used in places where High Fidelity's ID system plays a role, so in that regard, they are making a challenge but I don't think the challenge is aimed at the development of Oculus Rift.

[FlipperPA]

Sounds kind of like a rehash of that company they bought long ago, Avatars United.

[Pep]

It sounds like Philip hasn't learned from his compete FAIL to institute identity validation with LL.

Pep (Different company, same bullshit - you can't validate identity online, certainly not globally.)