Blogs in Peru, 2005 · Global Voices
David Sasaki

In the past year two new services focused on Peruvian blogs have appeared: the first was Perublog.net, which began operating in January of 2005, and which is now offering hosting and a directory with XMLRPC notifications. And then in May, Perublogs.com appeared, a directory which would go on to become a provider of various services to the Peruvian blogophere and which also puts out Blog Report, which measures and analyzes the activity of the bloggers of Peru.
Even so, this year’s most important achievement was the incorporation of new participants and new themes into the blogs of Peru. The most notable additions took place in literary blogs. For a long time it seemed we had only Ivan Thais’ excellent efforts at Notas Moleskine (Moleskine Notes), but 2005 saw the appearance of Gustavo Faverón, Daniel Salas, and Leonardo Aguirre, among others.
Blogs dealing with education also appeared, such as the work of Juan Lapeyre at Educación y Tecnología (Education and Technology), that of university instructor Eland Vera, or that of i-Elanor at La Casa del Arbol (The House by the Tree). As I pointed out, the appearance of these new authors will enable new conversations and new modes of communication in the blogosphere, in addition to bringing the attention of a wider audience to what the Internet is and what can be done with it.
And certainly the past year has clearly shown that the media is interested in blogs. Various articles and blurbs appeared in several national newspapers, describing general aspects of blogs and the topics they deal with, as well as informative pieces on the services at Perublogs. And the year ended with an interesting sponsorship agreement in which the newspaper Perú.21 carries a link to Gustavo Faverón's blog on their website.
But it’s not just the media that has been showing interest in blogs. While it’s true that the emergence of journalists in blogs began with the arrival, in 2003, of JC Luján “Sin Papel” (“Paper Free”), in 2005 a group of students from the course he teaches at the local university made their way into the blogosphere, with varying degrees of success. Elsewhere, well-known, distinguished journalists such as Juan Gargurevich and Manuel Jesus Orbegozo consolidated the blogs they began in 2004, turning them into resources for debate and reference. Marco Sifuentes also joined in with “El Utero de Marita” (Marita’s Uterus), and columnist Daniel Flores who is, justifiably, the journalist most familiar with tech issues—I can remember him from years ago, back when the Navegante list still existed.
And so 2005 saw new topics, new participants, and new interests begin taking shape in the blogosphere. While we saw several services that seemed redundant at the time (cases in point: Perublogs,  Perublog, and Blogsperu), group endeavors like Viadescape and Cinencuentro have also come on the scene, all of which have found their own niches and have begun to explore the potential for growth in the blogosphere. In 2006, perhaps we’ll see new group efforts that offer still more options to cybernauts. It would be interesting, for example, to see Viadescape take off and bring together users from all over the country, or for new blogs with a regional focus to start appearing with information on tourism and local issues. Podcasts deserve special attention—they’ve begun to be heard in the voices of everyday folks, showing us that communication isn’t just an exclusive privilege or something limited to just a few people. With that in mind, 2006 looks like it will be an auspicious year. Seriously.