| A note dated 19 September 1982 by Scott Falman a computer scientist from Carnegie University Pittsburgh in one of the internet-forums, says literally: “Yes, I am the creator of
smiley” “emoticon” which is commonly used in internet postal correspondence, chats and in news forums………………..Or at least one among the architects”
According to Michael Johnson, who is one among the staff of Microsoft Corporation’s research subdivision, says that birth certificate of “emoticon” was found out merely owing to collective efforts of Corporation staff.
We are not trying to open “secret of the century” or “inventing a bicycle”. Internet was initially created as an academic computer network; main purpose behind this was to link several American universities and research establishments.
In those times not even a word was said about Internet as a tool for leisure and entertainment.
The only tool at least to somehow divert professors attention from research activities, was
“news board”, or simply to say- forums.
Nonetheless, despite of contentions emerging today about birth of “smiley”, it was born only for one purpose- for denoting emotions in a text.
Different proposals were pushed: “*” at the end of phrase, and “%”, because it looks rather amusing, and that’s why only it can fully denote a joke. But virtually a final decision had been taken regarding the use of “*” for joke, “ %”- for bad jokes, when Scott Falman suggested his view point of expressing emotions.” I suggest using the given symbol so as to mark funny words: :-). To denote a sentence which is not a joke write: :-(”.
With the help of “smiley”, composed of set of symbols, millions of people express their emotions, laugh, and express discontent, feel bad and wink at each other in vast Internet. First “smile” gave birth to more than 2000 combinations, which in everyday life of “ Internet- inhabitant” by any means play big role.
It is difficult today to imagine communication in a network without using multiple combinations, which are increasing in quantum regularly and can convey user’s mood to the other side of the PC’s display.
Using “smiley” sometimes enters “real” life too: in SMS messages, while creating one or other brand and different types of characters, shows mood of the user to surrounding people. |
A colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis - a horizontal smiley face turned 25 on Wednesday. Twenty five years ago professor Scott E. Fahlman from Carnegie Mellon University was the first person to use the three keystrokes - colon, hyphen and parenthesis - to form a text version of a smile in a computer message. To celebrate this anniversary, Fahlman and his colleagues, together with Yahoo Inc. have established The Smiley Award for student competitions in person-to person communications.
