New emoticons for Gtalk and Gmail

Just heard – You are getting new and improved emoticons for GMail and GTalk.

Also heard – AC/DC has come out with an ASCII types video which runs on MS Excel.

Is there a possible connection between AC/DC going to look low tech and GMail looking Hi tech? Experimentation / A/B Testing could be one possible answer. Why A/B testing? Is GTalk not good enough for people who wants to communicate with each other? And is not GTalk more popular than other pretty little cute IM packages such as Y!Messenger, RediffBol etc.?

Google might just be looking out for your future power users (read teens). At present we have quite a good proportion of 18- 35 year olds using Gtalk and Gmail for their academic and professional uses. Close to 10 years of web experience may not entice them much for smileys too. Happy with ’spartan’ smileys and emoticons. Teens might need some chocolates to really get stuck to this chat machine.

On a personal note, this does not make much difference to me. Wait and see how these improvements translate to numbers. Recession proofing? Anyone?