Today, Microsoft announced what it"s calling personalized emoticons. The feature will allow users to take some emoticons and swap them out with other characters. For example, the first five faces on the emoticon list can be swapped out for a monkey, a robot, a cat, a koala, or a dog.
Obviously, the feature doesn"t work with all of them, or even all of the faces. And oddly, they"re not exactly personalized; there are just more options. The term "personalized emoticons" implies that they"ll be tailored to the individual user. Of course, new emoticons are always fun.
Aside from the different characters, you can also change hearts and ribbons to different colors.
Right now, the feature is only available for Skype Insiders on all platforms. On Windows, you can join the Windows Insider Program, or you can sign up through the Google Play Store on Android. Unfortunately, you still need an invitation to sign up for the iOS previews.
The good news is that this feature isn"t likely to stay in beta for too long. Non-Insiders will probably have it in a few weeks.