Letter to my readers

My appreciate friends: after 925.41666666 days having started the publication of ideas in this space known as Geofumadas, and on the eve of a year about to start, I want to (and I feel I owe) shake the inkwell with explicit direction to the readers.

On these days it is difficult to properly identify the term reader, not only because digital contents are obsolete in the next minute, but because these new forms in which the blog has come to be called intellectual production, is very difficult to swallow without a good mouth lemon (Spanish Idiom: “limón de boca” which alludes in this case at the quality of the material posted). I come from a generation that published books in printed formats, passing through review editor, separation of colors, cataloguing data, etc. accustomed to present them to a small group of guests: former classmates of school, work and family that attend the 23 minutes event, leaving away with their book signed under the arm after a quick hug, a kiss on the cheek. Then a few stayed, these ones known as readers that, before seeing the book, they seemed to know its contents; with whom the time didn’t slaughter for hugs, shake hands and why not a kiss (much pleasant). They “ruminate” the book until the color of recycling, then in cafes get close to give you an admiration greeting and because of the excess lying clothing no longer a kiss.

Today, much of that has changed (at least for me), webcasting is a pleasure with the routines inventiveness that give back to content in only a few seconds. But to do this we have had to learn strange terms as rss feed, 2.0, tag, slug, ping, knowing that to operate many tasks there must be percent signs (%), underscore (_), at sign (@); quotation marks no longer have the same sense of the textual quotation, the editorial revision appears to be a waste of time, the protocol of a bibliographic citation is a simple url, remark text is an insult to the Cascade Style Sheet (CSS). Finally, much of the romance is now a hindrance.

Then Google Analytics make us categorize the readers among those who return and those who come to resolve an emergency, those who come from search engines and the ones that access directly; the ones who read us opening the blog and the ones who follow feed readers, the obsolete’s splashing in Internet Explorer and the geeks surfing with Safari or Chrome. In all of this mix (Spanish Idiom: “bonche”, a not classified item’s list, because of its multiples categories) of categories you might lose a whole day without producing anything trying to understand consumer trends, at least, we finally ended up resigning to count them as simple numbers.

But in all of this, the advantages outweigh the romance. Knowing that a reader spent over an hour reading a procedure is rewarding, knowing that in a town, 300 kilometers from Lima someone connects weekly to read the smokes of a madman, get the feedback from those who one day break anonymity to leave a comment even for innocent day. This and more, is exciting.

Therefore, in order to not continue philosophizing about what everybody knows…

My sincere thanks to those who have embraced this space that, in 2.5347 years, have brought some benefit from this content. For those who still are in anonymity, I send a warm greeting. For those who have mail me and that after their contact I consider my friends, my thanks because their confidence has been release me some personal content, which remind us that in the midst of this tangle of geospatial terms we exist.

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editor@geofumadas.com