Virtual Landmarks

There is a new proposal on the Linden table. It comes from Toysoldier Thor and can be found in the JIRA as: SVC-8082Proposed Global Service for SL:  VIRTUAL LANDMARKS & VLM Mapping Services.

The Problem

Consider what happens when you have a home or shop in-world and your landlord decides to return the land to Linden Lab or for some other reason you have to move. The land is either going to disappear and all your stuff will be returned or your shop or home will be gone. You find a new house, apartment, and/or shop. There is little that can be done to stop that process.

Current Landmark Flow – By Toysoldier Thor – Click to Enlarge

But, consider. What about all the Landmarks that point to your shop or whatever that no longer exists? What do you do with the dozens to thousands of links in the Market Place to your non-existent shop? Did you know there is no easy way to just change the landmark you have included with a product you have for sale? You have to reload the entire product package.

This is such a problem that many merchants no longer include a landmark in their Market Place packages. If their landlord gives up their region, boots them, raises the rent, or whatever, they have to move and change all their landmarks.

As Toysoldier said, “If a mall or club wants to renovate [or] move an LM temporarily they can’t, not without tons of LMs pointing to the old location.”

The Solution

The fix for that problem is Virtual Landmarks. So, how does that work? The answer is: very much like the Domain Naming System (DNS) that we use for web sites.

When you type in the URL blog.Nalates.net your browser via your computer sends a request to the DNS service asking where Nalates.net can be found. The service ends back an IP Address (Internet Protocol). Your browser can then send a request to that address.

New Virtual Landmark Flow – By Toysoldier Thor – Click to Enlarge

DNS allows me to use the domain name with hosting on Go Daddy or any service I personally prefer. Freedom is good. All I have to do is go to my domain registrar and change the IP Address for Nalates.net. All requests are sent to the new IP address at the new hosting company.

The proposal is to do something like the DNS for landmarks. You could make a virtual landmark (VLM) that to the user would look just like a regular landmark. From their viewpoint it would work the same as a landmark we have now. But, it would sort of be a landmark that points to a second landmark. You, and only you, would be able to change the second landmark whenever you want. The result is when using an old VLM you would arrive at my new shop, no matter how many times I move.

9 thoughts on “Virtual Landmarks

  1. This would certainly help with my pet peeve of Marketplace slurls pointing to empty plots.
    One important point, slurls (which you refer to as Land Marks) are not really Land Marks! I can not save them in inventory for later reference. I wish Marketplace would send me a real LM so I could browse marketplace off line and have LMs waiting for me when I log on.

    • Your correct about SLURL’s not being LM’s. But, while that is accurate on the tech side, the not-so-geeky still refer to them as LM’s.

  2. That’s an extremely clever idea. One of the kind that seem so useful and so “why hasn’t it always been there?”. Hope that’s not a sign that it will never see the light.

    If only the JIRA wouldn’t toss weird error messages at me when I click watch&vote…

  3. I was wondering why the Jira count was climbing fast today and new comments were hitting the Jira… then I discovered your blog posting of Virtual LandMarks. that explained it. 🙂

    You did an awesome job of turning my technical geek talk in the JIRA into a more human non-geek talk and provided even more examples and adding outcomes from our talks with LL. Thanks!

    PS – I am hoping that one of the Lindens from the Server User Group post the transcripts to the Aug 3rd meeting & the topic. Several have been asking to read the talk.

    Thanks again for helping get the word out.

      • The next phase of my strategy that started immediately after the Aug 3rd meeting with the Lindens was/is to “Socialize” VLMs. To get the greater SL Community to know what VLM’s are, support it, promote and spread the news, and to basically make VLMs a new buzzword within SL. This will make it hard for LL to quietly forget about what VLMs were and let another idea from an SL resident become just another un-actioned JIRA in their system.

        Your Blog posting was a huge first banner to his phase of the strategy. I have also created a SUPPORT VLMs inworld poster for any parcel owner to get a free copy and place in their store,mall,club,gallery. Details of the poster and where to get it are on my Flickr…

        http://www.flickr.com/photos/11535545@N00/7720340848/in/photostream

  4. Pingback: Wow! "Virtual Landmark" proposed to LindenLab - SLUniverse Forums

  5. MAJOR GOOD NEWS on VLM’s becoming a future solution on the SL grid. I posted a big blog posting on the VLM (Virtual Land Marks) update and the details of the good news but to summarize…..

    Yesterday at the Server UG meeting, Cheesey & Andrew Linden updated me on the VLM progress within LL that VLM’s had passed a major hurdle internally. LL has completed their feasibility reveiw on VLMs and they felt it was viable enough to send the VLM solution to the team that sets it’s development priority. This means that VLMs are no longer an “IF but now a “WHEN” will it become a solution on the SL grid.

    Thanks for helping promote the idea of VLMs !!

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