Re: Emoji: emoticons vs. literacy

From: John Hudson (john@tiro.ca)
Date: Sat Dec 27 2008 - 00:19:08 CST


Asmus wrote:

>> My favourite is the SMILING TRADITIONALIST ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST emoticon
>>
>> o{]:¬)
>>
>> which I look forward to seeing encoded in a conventional subset of
>> emoticons as a little picture of a chap in a biretta.

> I wonder whether you yourself really think that this is part of the core
> subset?

It's core for a particular community, which is why I mentioned it. It is
also more like emoji in its use, rather than like an emoticon. If I were
the sort of person who uses pictures instead of words, I might send a
message to a friend noting that 'I saw o{]:¬) today', meaning that I saw
our priest.

Thinking about this, it strikes me that any standardised,
telecom-defined set of emoji is unlikely to satisfy users who want to
communicate in this way. Surely what users will want is a means to make
and share their own emoji among contacts for whom these images will be
meaningful -- just as they use slang, in-jokes, etc. when talking. That
implies sending the images themselves from device to device, caching
them and indexing them for future use.

JH

-- 
Tiro Typeworks        www.tiro.com
Gulf Islands, BC      tiro@tiro.com
The Lord entered her to become a servant.
The Word entered her to keep silence in her womb.
The thunder entered her to be quiet.
             -- St Ephrem the Syrian


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