*By Alisha Haridasani*
Apparently the texting world was very contemplative this year.
According to an online survey, the ‘Thinking Face’ emoji best describes 2018ーmaking it the winner of the Best Emoji of the Year in Emojipedia’s annual awards honoring World Emoji Day.
The other honoree was the ‘Exploding Head,' which won for Best New Emoji.
“These are put out to a popular vote, we put it out to the whole World Emoji Day network,” said Jeremy Burge, Chief Emoji Officer at Emojipedia. “This is the will of the people."
Voting was open for two weeks and closed on Tuesday.
Apple also marked World Emoji Day by revealing that dozens of new emojis will be added to iOS 12 later this year.
Redheads, bald people, and people with graying hair are among Apple’s newcomersーpart of the company’s latest attempts to increase diversity and inclusion among its slate of emojis, said Burge.
A peacock, a caped superhero, a cupcake, and the surprisingly popular mango were also added to iOS 12.
“There are so many mango fans out there,” explained Burge. “Mango’s popular, trust me.”
Apple integrated emojis onto its platform in 2012, catalyzing significant growth in usage, said Burge. In the years since, emojis have rapidly become universal symbols for laughter, love, anger...and whatever the folded hands mean.
There are currently almost 3,000 emojis approved by encoding organization Unicode, and most of them ー around 2,300 ー are used daily. According to data released by Facebook last week, over 900 million emoji-only messages are sent over the Messenger app every day. Emojis even shape our email habits: analytics company Leanplum reports emails with emojis are opened 66 percent more often than emails without the symbols.
For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/winners-of-2018-emoji-awards-revealed)
In an effort to fight climate change several corporations have vowed to work to fight climate change by 2030. They say the goal is to reduce carbon emissions by 40% or even close to 100%. However, according to a new study, many of these companies are not actually practicing what they preach. Tom Egger, senior lecturer at Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, joins Cheddar News to discuss more.
'Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy' dives into over 20 years of the icon himself, Kanye West. The trilogy is described as 'an intimate and revealing portrait of Kanye West's experience, showcasing both his formative days trying to break through and his life today as a global brand and artist.' Cheddar news sat down with directors of the documentary and long-time friends of Kanye, Chike Ozah and Clarence "Coodie" Simmons, to discuss the project.
The Super Bowl is only a few days away, and the game is currently tracking to be the most expensive one ever.
Gametime, a website and app for last-minute tickets, says the average ticket price for the NFL's championship game is $9,502.50, with the most expensive seats costing nearly $38,000. That's a far cry away from the average ticket price of the first-ever Super Bowl in 1967, which was only $12. The average ticket price increased by more than $8,000 in just the past decade. Matt Rados, Senior Operations Manager at Gametime, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
At-home medical labs company Getlabs raised $20 million in a Series A round, led by Emerson Collective and the Minderoo Foundation. Getlabs aims to be the boots-on-the-ground partner to telehealth. The company says more than 70% of medical decisions still require collecting diagnostic tests in person, and that it fills that void by delivering health care directly to their patients' homes. Founder & CEO of Getlabs Kyle Michelson joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Sting has sold his catalog of more than 600 songs for $300 million to Universal Music. The deal gives the label the rights to all of his work, including “Every Breath You Take," as well as all future royalties.
Miller Lite is opening the first branded bar in the metaverse, by way of Decentraland, as a way to advertise during the Super Bowl this year without buying an expensive TV commercial slot. Sofia Colucci, global vice president of Miller Family of Brands, joined Cheddar to talk about the new marketing concept. "We have a lot of great partnerships with NFL teams throughout the year but were shut out of advertising during the Super Bowl game, so this pushes us to think creatively and also think of what feels really relevant right now," Colucci said. "There's no question that there's a lot of excitement with the metaverse, and we wanted to participate but in a way that felt right for Miller Lite."
Kalle Marsal, Chief Operating Officer at PetDx, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how next-generation sequencing technology is being used to detect cancer in pets early.
Ashleigh Hinde, Founder and CEO of WALDO, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss why now is a good time to make eyecare a priority, and how they are democratizing access to eyecare for all.
