Goodbye Iceland.
We’ll miss you.

Halló, this is Takk Takk. Two years, three months and six days ago, a very old island in the middle of the ocean began using the internet to talk to humans. It was all a part of something very, very serious called Iceland Wants to Be Your Friend, a social media experiment we created at the initiative of some very smart people at the Icelandic Tourist Board.

Since then, using only our brains and fancy machines, we and some very clever friends of ours have helped Iceland use things like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, email, blogs, Vimeo and Flickr to talk to humans, make friends with them, and maybe get them thinking about visiting it in a flying machine one day. If you are one of these humans, we’d like to say this. Seriously. This has been the most fun and rewarding project we've ever been involved with.

We’re writing to tell you that from today, 22 January 2012, a brand new bunch of clever people will be helping Iceland talk to humans. They work for something very, very serious and important called Promote Iceland, and they have promised to take extra good care of Iceland and its inter-nets. Takk Takk will still be around, doing other interesting things and being friends with Iceland.

Takk Takk would like to say takk æðislega to the following people who have helped Iceland with its inter-nets over the past two years, three months and six days: Aðalsteinn Jörundsson, Aegir Hallmundur, Alísa Kalyanova, Andrés Jónsson, Anna Spysz, Annie Atkins, Annie Atkins’ mum, Arnar Bjarnason, Arnór Heiðar, Atli Viðar Þorsteinsson, Bárður Örn Gunnarsson, Bobby Breiðholt, Brian Suda, Catharine Fulton, Dagný Kristinsdóttir, Doktor Gunni, Elisabeth Ward, Eliza Reid, Finnur Pálmi Magnússon (Gommit), François Tizon, Gréta, Gummi Sig, Hannes Agnarsson Johnson, Haukur S. Magnússon, Hayley Dunning, Helga Gerður Magnúsdóttir, John Peabody, Julien Apack, Karólína Thorarensen, Margrét Maack, Margrét Thorlacius, Nicole Pollentier, Rán Flygenring, Rebecca Moran, Sara Blask, Snorri Kristjánsson, Valgeir Valdimarsson, Þorgerður Einarsdóttir, Þórgnýr Thoroddsen and Þórmundur Jónatansson. Thanks to everyone at the Icelandic Tourist Board, especially Director General Ólöf Atladóttir, and everyone at Promote Iceland, especially Managing Director Jón Ásbergsson, Inga Hlín Pálsdóttir and Sveinn Birkir Björnsson. Special thanks also to Alexander Sichart and Reimar Snæfells Pétursson. And last but not least, very special thanks to Jón Gunnar Borgþórsson, formerly of the Icelandic Tourist Board, at whose initiative Iceland Wants to Be Your Friend was created in 2009 and without whom it would not exist.

And if you are kind of person who is still reading this, Takk Takk would like to be your friend. If you want to know more about how to help islands in the middle of the ocean use the internet, or if you’d like our help making friends and influencing people, or if you’d just like to say halló, send an email to hello@takktakk.com. We would like to hear from you. (Really.) Bless bless.