Happy Birthday Yahoo Messenger Emoticons!

Today, the Sunnyvale company and its Yahoo Messenger side celebrate the 25th anniversary of the emoticons, animated faces that were first introduced in the instant messaging client in 2002. Today, after approximately 5 years, Yahoo Messenger contains eye-candy emoticons that are used by numerous users to express their feelings and to improve the chatting experience. The parent company Yahoo is celebrating this even with a special contest, codename Emoticontest, that invites users to send their favorite creations to be included in the next version of the instant messaging solution.

"For 25 years, the 'smiley' :) and his happy parenthetical-powered friends have added a critical layer of expression to our daily online conversations. When you can't hear someone's voice or see their face, emoticons are there to help us express what simple words can't," said Jeff Bonforte, vice president, Yahoo! Messenger.

Most of the emoticons are already included in the majority of chatting solutions such as Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger and Skype. However, every program has its own interface that makes them more or less attractive for the users. Other applications are even more advanced because they allow users to implement their own set of emoticons in order to make the application more attractive and improve the experience.

"Nearly 85% of people using Yahoo! Messenger daily rely on emoticons to add color and character to their communication. Our users are the experts and to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the emoticon, we are asking Yahoo! Messenger users to create the next generation of smiley faces," the Yahoo representative added.

If you want to download the latest version of the instant messaging client, you can take it straight from Softpedia using this link. Also, there are a lot of other add-ons that can be implemented into the chatting solution able to improve the functionality of the program.