picture-is-worth-thousand-words.html

Posted by Darren Lewis, Gmail engineer

Here on the Gmail team, we're always thinking of ways to help you communicate. Back in the day, we put chat right inside Gmail. Then along came group chat and more emoticons. And when we realized that late night communication had its downsides, we created a state-of-the-art lucidity test for after-hours email. Anyway, the black and white days of text-based emails have had their day. Following the evolutionary path blazed by colored labels, we present, in all their technicolor glory, emoticons in your mail.