What Is the Metaverse Standards Forum?

As many of the world’s tech giants are working to assert a dominant footing in the metaverse, some people are speculating about how the new iteration of the internet will be governed, and how any new challenges will be managed. 

For lots of industry leaders, establishing open standards is the way to go. To achieve full interoperability, many believe that the creation of a standards development organisation such as the World Wide Web Consortium or The Khronos Group is essential. 

For this reason, the Metaverse Standards Forum has recently been created. But who has signed up, and how might the organisation shape the future of this space?

Let’s discuss what’s already known about the Metaverse Standards Forum.

Who Has Signed Up?

So far, the founding members of the Metaverse Standards Forum include many of the companies developing the apps and hardware that will take VR to its logical next level. 

As one of the companies that has shouted the loudest about their metaverse aims, it’s no surprise that Meta is involved. Alongside them, Microsoft, Epic Games, nVidia, Qualcomm, Adobe, Sony, Unity, and lots more have joined. Even Ikea make the list.

Who Hasn’t Signed Up?

One of the most notable absences from the list of tech giants that have signed up for the Metaverse Standards Forum is Apple. With a market cap of more than two trillion-dollars, they don’t come much bigger, and Apple is reportedly working on its first XR headset.

Although no formal announcements have been made, Apple’s headset shows early signs of being one of the most advanced yet. So why has Apple not signed up?

There’s a couple of potential reasons. Firstly, Apple quite often marches to the beat of its drum when it comes to joining industry groups and standards forums and usually only joins when it’s beneficial to their interests. 

Currently, Apple’s plans haven’t been formalised. By joining the Metaverse Standards Forum, they’d be effectively letting the world know their intentions. 

Other companies who haven’t joined up yet include:

  • Niantic – Creators of the AR phenomenon, Pokemon GO
  • Snap – The social media company that has worked in AR for years and even has its own AR glasses
  • Roblox – The online game platform is one of the biggest sandbox games out there

Maybe they missed the sign up email?

What Will the Metaverse Standards Forum Do?

The Metaverse Standards Forum is open to any organisation to join, at no cost, and without any NDAs. The idea of creating universal open standards is to drive interoperability and make it easier for developers to build across a range of platforms.

One of the primary objectives of the Metaverse Standards Forum is to support existing standards that are relevant to the metaverse and create guidelines for deployment along with consistent terminology.

The forum will achieve its aims through pragmatic projects that may include plugfests, implementation prototyping, open source tooling, and hackathons.

So, will the Metaverse Standards Forum do for the metaverse, what the World Wide Web Consortium did for the internet? 

It’ll certainly help define the universal building blocks and rules of the metaverse so that tech organisations can take it to the next level. Let’s see what happens when they hold their first meeting in the coming weeks. 

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