I don't think Unicode emoji make sense in the long run - even if they're handy in SMS, and fun to scatter around normal text boxes, it would be better to use ch

I don't think Unicode emoji make sense in the long run - even if they're handy in SMS, and fun to scatter around normal text boxes, it would be better to use chat protocols with their own sets of consistent emoticons (as, indeed, many mobile messaging apps have). Why? (a) Details matter. It doesn't matter if my 'A' displays in a different font on your phone, but the difference between Apple's colorful, pixelated, Space Invaders-like rendering of http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1F47E/index.htm http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/1F47E/index.htm and the server-generated image's outlined round tentacle monster is fairly significant. (b) Emoticons (at least those beyond the core set) are things of fashion: we always want more, but old ones go out of style. Though depictions can change, we're going to be stuck with the current list of Unicode emoji forever.