The forceof 'www' is gradually and subtly changing the way we live. Obvious I know. Iwant to move with it but sometimes the changes are so subtle and intangible I'mnot sure 'what' exactly I need to move with. Sometimes I'm incrediblyoverwhelmed, yet somehow I'm always intrigued. I love people - talking to people,watching people, reading about people. Over the last ten years I've learnt tocommunicate with people online - and I'm still learning. I've experiencedcorporate life and now the opposite, running a humble little Internet company'My Emoticons'. I grew up in England,moved to Australia and nowlive in Singapore.Diverse experiences help me solve jigsaw puzzles. I gather pieces of the puzzlefrom interacting and observing and then fit them all together and create apicture that tells a much more interesting story. Here's the story behind ajigsaw puzzle about villages and emoticons I recently completed. Sounds bizarreI know, I promise it will make sense.

Village life before emoticons andsmileys

DavidArmano introduced me to the idea of a 'Relationship Renaissance' in an essay inthe 'Age of Conversation'. Armano is incredibly perceptive, I read his blogoften. He asks the question:' Are we not seeing another Renaissance unfoldbefore our very eyes? A Renaissance built off of us discovering each other? A Renaissancecomposed of a human Web woven through shared knowledge, interests and yesconversation?'

Armano'sconcept of a 'Relationship Renaissance' is based on the idea of individualsrelating - to things and to each other - online. In the 'olden days' primitivesimple village life made relating simple. This is the time before there werecomputers, before there were emoticons and smileys - before there was MSNMessenger - can you imagine? I knew where you lived and you knew where I lived.We talked and I trusted you. You told me about the new French bakery in thevillage. I visited the bakery and bought a fresh baguette. It was warm when Ibought it. I had time to chat with the baker. He gave me a free croissant as Iwas leaving. Had I stolen the croissant, everyone would have known about it. Welived in the same village. We walked the same streets. We met the same people.

Then theage of mass communications came along, as described by Seth Godin as the'TV-industrial complex' i.e. buy ads, get more distribution, sell more productsand make more profit. It worked. It worked very well. People got rich. TheInternet was invented. A few years later Emoticonsarrived on the scene - ascii emoticons (those ugly text emoticons) and littlelater cool graphic emoticons were born, then they become even more cool whensomeone invented animated emoticons. But what happened in the village duringthis time? I didn't talk directly to people anymore. I didn't visit the shops.I started phoning my order to the grocer in the next village. He would deliverto my door. I didn't know him and I didn't know where his produce came from. Itwasn't as fresh but it was cheaper and faster. Then I started ordering myshopping online.

Are thepieces of the puzzle starting to form a mental picture? Conversations becomeindirect and impersonal. Surely ads were more trustworthy than people in thevillage? I didn't have time to chat. I just wanted service - now. Right now,I'm in a hurry. Couldn't someone automate the process? Robots work better -right?.

 But over time, things started gettingcomplicated. There was lots of noise. I was getting increasingly frustratedwith 'impersonal'. I reminisced about the little French bakery, forced to closewhen the 'big bully' supermarket arrived. I got disillusioned with cheapsupermarket croissants. They pumped artificial 'freshly baked' smells into thesupermarket. I believed it was real for a while. Then I found out the truth.But something has shifted. I agree with Seth, the impersonal TV-industrialcomplex is hemorrhaging.

Fitting emoticons and smileys intothe jigsaw puzzle

So whatdoes this have to do with emoticons and smileys? Good question. As I see it,emoticons are all about getting back to basics. It's about me taking the timeto communicate and express myself - what do I really feel? Slowing down andtaking the time to download some free emoticons that will liven up an InstantMessenger conversation with my friend on the other side of the world. At MyEmoticons this is our passion. We discovered that lots of other people have asimilar passion for free emoticons and smileys. So we design msn emoticons andgive them away for free to help people communicate and express themselves inthis huge global village we live in today. Our emoticons and smileys can beused on blogs  too and even in email. Ourpurpose is this simple - create genuinely useful Emoticons and in doing so start a conversation and you know what,people come to take a look. They hang around at MyEmoticons.com because they senseit's genuine. It is, our passion is very genuine.

I foundthere were lots of pieces in this particular puzzle but the picture itself isfairly simple. At My Emoticons, we want to talk to people and relate. We wantto get to know people like you. We want to share our thoughts and ideas andweave a human web. In the global village, I often can't see who I'm talking to(although webcams certainly help). It requires some effort to get out there andinitiate conversations but if and when I do, there's an opportunity to meet adiverse array of people. When I do meet people, the crucial fact is, I wantthese meetings to be personal and meaningful. That's why I feel our humblelittle website 'My Emoticons' has been accepted in the global village. enhance online communication.They help people bring their personality to conversations emanating from thekeys on a keyboard. More and more people are arriving in the global villagefrom all parts of the world. Different styles of emoticons are evolving all thetime. That's what we like. We don't think our emoticons are the best or theonly emoticons people should download. We welcome competition. We look forwardto more people entering into village conversation building genuinerelationships and stimulating a real sense community in the global onlinevillage.