Mehrnoosh wrote an interesting essay about image tagging and retrieval, comparing folksonomy and controlled vocabulary. She described different researches about how people retrieve images from the Internet. There was some interesting food for thought for me in that essay. For example that unlike for texts, while retrieving images, people do not focus much on the authority of the image but rather on the fact, that the image represents what they want. Another interesting thought was that often the searchers have a well-defined mental image of a potentially satisfying picture already in their mind. I found some recognition in those thoughts.
She went on by describing folksonomy, or in this context image tagging by the users opposed to controlled vocabularies. Mehrnoosh brought out the advantages and disadvantages of folksonomy in the image retrieval process. I liked that she had found quite a lot studies about the topic to back up the arguments of the both sides. The last paragraph brought out an example of the National Archive of UK and their plan to add their digital collection to Flickr. I liked that example in the end and maybe I would suggest to use more examples like it in the rest of the text as well, just to illustrate the essay.
Kersti's essay was about digital ecosystem and whether it is a fertile metaphor or the new type of ecosystem that uses ecological principles. She focused on the notions associated with the terms of "digital", "ecosystem", "new media" and "metaphor". She brought out a lot of interesting tangible examples to illustrate the essay. The way Kersti went through all the related terms and devoted a paragraph for each matter gave an overview of the thoughts in her mind about the topic. Although some of the arguments remained a bit confusing. For example equalling the term "digital" with "online" - this should maybe have been explained a little more.
Kersti's writing style for this essay was kind of philosophical and at the same time had a personal touch, which made it easy to read. In order to back up her arguments a little better, she should have used more references and citations in the text.
Valeria wrote her essay about online memes. I like the way Valeria can connect the topics of her every post to a lot of other examples from different fields. If to look at the first part of her essay, she starts with examples of Mona Lisa and some from Japanese culture. But all the examples work in the context of her essay.
Valeria's essay is very well structured and each chapter of the essay describes content relevant to the explanation of online memes and their phenomenon. There are many references made from different researchers and web sites, which gives her arguments a good backup. There aren't many suggestions to make for Valeria as I found the essay good, comprehensive and summarizing.
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