Behind the scenes of Skype emoticons
When we launched Skype 5.5 for Windows a couple weeks ago, we unveiled new emoticons plus some freshly animated versions of our old favorites. We were excited to see people trying out the new emoticons and discovering the hidden ones.
In today’s busy, always-on world, we think emoticons have a way of keeping it human – a smile here, a wink there, a bear hug here, a dance there. My personal favorite lately is the occasional 
, not because I particularly like to head bang, but because it’s the perfect expression to describe some of my more recent life moments. It’s hard to imagine life without emoticons.
A little known fact is that some of the emoticons reflect iconic moments within Skype history, like the famous employee pool party 
a few years ago. They also represent a cast of past and present people at Skype, including: 
, 
, 
, and 
.
Emoticons have been a part of our employee culture and history. In fact, the latest emoticons were extra exciting for us because they were selected from submissions by employees, and voted on across the company. Our emoticon winners get to revel in the fact that their ideas have turned into little pieces of Skype history.
The short version here: We love emoticons and it’s part of our culture here at Skype.
To celebrate this fact, and because we want to publicly recognize the employees of the recent emoticons, here they are:
1. 
Sergei Sergejev, QA, Tallinn | (facepalm) 
2. 
Graeme Pearcey, Customer Service, Singapore | (wfh) 
3. 
Kim Milosevich, PR, London | (fingerscrossed) 
4. 
Alice Hume, Consumer, London | (tumbleweed) 
5. 
Simon Wilson, Partner Management, London | (lalala) 
6. 
Kim Milosevich, PR, London | (waiting) 
7. 
Paul Vachier, Web Development, Tallinn | (highfive) 
8. 
Vallo Valkiainen, Anti-Fraud, Tallinn | (wtf) 
HIDDEN – Now revealed
Don’t worry Mac users – these new emoticons will be available to you soon.
We know some of you are just brimming with your own ideas and want to jump on the emoticon ‘bandwagon’ – we’ll be asking for your ideas too. So stay tuned, and get in touch with your inner emoticons.
