What is a smiley?

From Smileypedia, the encyclopedia about smiley artists

From Wikipedia:

A smiley, or happy face , is a stylized representation of a smiling human face, commonly represented as a yellow button with two dots representing eyes and a half circle representing the mouth. "Smiley" is also sometimes used as a generic term for any emoticon.

The full Smiley article can be found here.

So what is an emoticon?

From Wikipedia:

A portmanteau of emotion (or emote) and icon, an emoticon is a symbol or combination of symbols used to convey emotional content in written or message form. Examples of widely known emoticons are the smiley face :) and the frowny face :(

The full Emoticon article can be found here.