Like them or not, emoticons have transcended chat rooms and now appear in Tweets, e-mails, text messages, and even advertisements. They've taken on a life of their own at conveying a message, thought, or, ahem, emotion. Google code writers have decided to enhance the number of emoticons that are available to GMail users, and many of them are animated.I still don't think emoticons belong in business e-mails, but I see them more and more. If you're a GMail user, you now have access to a bevy of new emoticons and dancing, animated icons to add to your e-mails. I checked them out this morning. They are actually a lot of fun.

When in the GMail e-mail composing screen, you'll see a squarish smiley face as one of the options in the tool bar. Click on it, and a huge drop-down selection of emoticons, icons, and other animations appears for you to choose from. Emoticons are now available in yellow, green, red, and blue.

The icons and other animations you can choose range from umbrellas, stormy clouds, gifts, a mug of beer or a martini. The list goes on and on. Just click on the one you want to add to your e-mail and it is automatically entered into the text.

Google also added a number of new emoticons to its GChat instant messenger client.

So go ahead, GMail users, feel free to express your emotions.

:-)