I’ve recently implemented Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) into kartooner.com. Basically, it’s an avatar service for web blogs, forums and community-orientated scripts like PHPNuke or Mambo. The concept is that the Gravatar server, which stores the 80×80 pixel images, recognizes and matches the email address you use when you comment on a blog and inserts your avatar image next to your comment.
The result is a more personalized comment with your custom avatar, be it a rambuctious pirate or a dazed and confused senior citizen. Implementing the Gravatar code into your respective blogging CMS is a piece of cake. The creator, Tom Werner of Mojombo.com, has provided a variety of implementation methods for popular blogging applications like Wordpress, Textpattern and Movabletype — it’s just a matter of downloading and installing the plug-in and tweaking your templates.
So what are you waiting for? Go register a free account, and watch your avatar magically appear next to your comments. You watch, you’ll want to comment just to see your Gravatar.
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Gravatar
07/31/2004
Erik pointed out on his website a great and fun tool, Gravatar. It allows you to have your own […]
I’m not much into avatars but can’t help how amusing the name is for me, since “gravata” is Portuguese Brazilian for “tie”. Therefore “gravatar” would sound something like “to tie” (an avatar to something else?)
On second thought…
I realize some people may not be interested in avatars, it’s a different concept for blogs. Sure, I’ve seen various blogs use the Favicon for the commenter’s profile, but I’ve never seen avatar specific graphics for each commenter.
It is interesting, however, that “gravata” means to tie. Makes sense for a project like this.
For my avatar, I’ve chosen one of the characters from Sideville, as drawn by master illustrator, Scott Thigpen.
Okay, not exactly “tie” — more like “necktie” really :D
Beto, you should add your comic character (like you have on the Astonish Factory). :)
What have you got to lose? It’s a fun service.
It’s Moe.…who is coming out of the bar-closet.
I’ve had my gravatar up for a few days, but never found any place that used it. So this is a good excuse. :-)
I’ll change it to one with my actual mugshot as soon as I can find a good photo of me.
I just can’t keep up with all these newfangled things. I just barely got a favicon…now I have to make a gravatar?
Really, it’s a pretty cool idea, and one that will probably take off nicely. I’ll still wait till I’m the last kid on the block to have one.
Its a nice idea and well implemented. I’ll be adding the code to my custom blog (PHP) over the weekend.
I did notice however, that the PHP and PERL code to implement this is considerably simpler than the other method.
How about tying it to a url as well as an email?
Eric: I know just what you mean. All of these newfangled gadgets and so little time. I just love adopting new and different gadgets for blogs, and considering this is a personal site, I think it’s well justified.
Richard: Actually, tying it to a URL would be a better method in my opinion considering we all use different emails (be it our Hotmail, GMail, Yahoo or domain accounts). Tom Werner, the creator, has already mentioned that he will be incorporating a multiple email feature into each of the accounts.
Johan: You mean you’re not the guy from Super Troopers? What a let down.
;)
How long does it usually take to get your Avatar okayed?
Multiple emails (or urls) is a great idea! :-)
Richard: From my experience with the service, it took a few hours. Tom Werner has to authorize them and append a rating to the graphic.
Just go with the old customer service adage; Underpromise, overdeliver :)
I chose to implement emails as the primary key to gravatars for a very important reason: I can verify that the actual owner of the email is the one uploading his or her gravatar. If the system was based on URL alone, there would be no way to verify that the URL you are signing up for is actually yours, making it possible to spoof gravatars for other people, which of course is intolerable.
It would be nice to have URL key functionality, but unfortunately I cannot implement it for the above mentioned reason. Hope that clears up any confusion or gravatar related disparagement. =)
BTW, I like your site kartooner!
Thanks Tom for clearing that up. I suppose it’s all on the honor system, regardless, considering anyone could use my email address at another Gravatar-enabled site. Although I can’t imagine why they would do such a thing. :)
Also, I appreciate your sentiment about my site. It’s been a work in progress for the past couple of years and keeps evolving.
I’d seen this mentioned briefly somewhere a couple of days ago, but this is the first site I’ve seen implement it. I like the idea. Really simple and easy to implement for WP. Adds a little bit of personality. But I’ve been incredibly boring and thrown up my favicon for now :)
Gary: Not to mention it’s easy to scan the comments for the site owner and/or any specific person. I’ve found that with just plain text comments it’s difficult to differentiate between the comments themselves and the person who posted the comment.
This is very cool, i’ve just implemented it in my own site.
It’s Cool to have the same avatar in the blogs and in deviantart and in the forums and Messenger and XP and… wel, you’ve got the idea
Thanks for the link
Gravatar
Desde hoy este sitio cuenta con Gravatar, un servicio que permite incluír una imagen de identificación o avatar de los comentantes en cada comentario, como si se tratáse de un foro. Gravatar significa avatar reconocido globalmente…
Okay, I’m just commenting to see what my Gravatar looks like on here. Nice looking template on this site.