Gravatar: A Profile Picture That Follows You Around the Web
August 26, 2009 · Chris Peters
Have you ever wondered how you could get your picture to show up like some other blog commenters seem to have the ability to do?
Have you ever seen these little gems next to blog posts?
Have you ever noticed that some magically have pictures next to them, and some are disinterested looking block face guys?
These images are called Gravatars (Globally Recognized Avatars). I know, super nerdy. Why didn’t they just name them Galactic Klinginoids and just call it a day?
The gist of Gravatars:
- You upload a square image of yourself (or whatever) at gravatar.com.
- You associate the image with an email address.
- The picture that you uploaded shows whenever you enter that email address in a blog comment form.
Sure, your Gravatar won’t show up on websites that don’t support them. But it’s a nice way to have a photo that you control appear next to your name with little effort on the sites that do support it.
Here’s what my Gravatar looks like on most blogs:
It’s best to choose a photo that will look good as a square like the one above. You’ll be forced to select a square section of the image after you upload it.
As you can see in my example above, I chose to chop off the top of my head. (It looked weird from the top of my head to the bottom of my lips or centered.) That’s probably how a head shot will look best for you as well. Be sure to play around with it a little and see what looks best.
For more info, check out the video that they have posted on the Gravatar home page:
