The fact that this has been tried before (again and again) doesn't as much mean that it's doomed to fail, as that it's doomed to succeed at some point, so +karma for trying.

It would be awesome to find a way to make this work, and yes, it does sound like it's more of a marketing issue than anything technical.

I like the OAUTH solution. It's a bit facebook-ey to stick the name/face to the user, but it's fair.

Personally (and I do mean personally) I'd love to see it able to create "private" rooms for staging servers (web development) and admin-panels so I can instruct employees from halfway across the globe. I realize that's quite niche though, and not much of a market, but there it is.