Especially for Mother Bear: Smiley Anniversary

[selchie]

Digital 'Smiley Face' Turns 25

By DANIEL LOVERING, Associated Press Writer

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

(09-18) 09:10 PDT PITTSBURGH, (AP) --

It was a serious contribution to the electronic lexicon. :-) Twenty-five years ago, Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman says, he was the first to use three keystrokes ? a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis ? as a horizontal "smiley face" in a computer message.

To mark the anniversary Wednesday, Fahlman and his colleagues are starting an annual student contest for innovation in technology-assisted, person-to-person communication. The Smiley Award, sponsored by Yahoo Inc., carries a $500 cash prize.

Language experts say the smiley face and other emotional icons, known as emoticons, have given people a concise way in e-mail and other electronic messages of expressing sentiments that otherwise would be difficult to detect.

Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly.

"I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-)," wrote Fahlman. "Read it sideways."

The suggestion gave computer users a way to convey humor or positive feelings with a smile ? or the opposite sentiments by reversing the parenthesis to form a frown.

More at Digital 'Smiley Face' Turns 25

[MotherBear]

to smileys everywhere.

[MotherBear]

But was Professor Fahlman the first?