SmileySquatting

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If smileys were used in important NameSpaces, people might grab them to try and sell them for big money. --:-)

Thus showing that knowledge of the future value of something can be quite useful.

Also illustrating how things which rely on cooperation to function smoothly can get gummed up when money is thrown into the mix.

Not that I understand this page's purpose, but I think that any environment where people will be jumping to acquire emoticons is not worth my interest. If you need ParaLanguage, there must be better ways than smileys...

Well yes there are, but when people are not writing letters, articles, reports or books -- when they are jotting down notes, communicating personal feelings about what is being said without turning the meta information into art -- then an emoticon is worth about 20 words. Think about it. What does it mean to save 20 words: A lack of expressive power? Saving screen real estate? Facilitating scanning of text and skimming of paragraphs? Sloppy reading? Quick overviews? Two answers are needed, therefore: What is the effect of emoticon usage? And what are our desires for the medium in question? People like JacobNielsen? suggest writing short texts for the web since reading from computer screens is about 25% slower [1]. But then again, maybe you don't share Nielsen's target audience. We are looking for thoughtful contributions, he is trying to find customers for his clients. -- AlexSchroeder

: This page is a small joke about the perversity of making links out of hay.

[Despair, Inc.] [announced] [the US Patent and Trademarks Office] [awarded them a registered trade mark] [for the :-( emoticon].

SmileySquatting

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