September 13, 2009
Please Get A Gravatar
Have you ever noticed how when you leave a comment on a blog, it displays a boring, generic gray head next to your comment instead of the gorgeous, colorful picture of Webby McGee next to the comment he posted before yours? Well, it’s because Webby has a Gravatar, and you don’t. Be jealous. But don’t just let that jealousy burn within you; use it to fuel your retribution.
You need to get a Gravatar of your own.
Gravatars (or Globally Recognized Avatars) are exactly what their extremely vague name implies. They are avatars or profile pictures that work across multiple blogs; and they make them more beautiful. To put it simply, you create a Gravatar account, tie it your email address, and upload an image of yourself. From that point on, anytime you leave a comment on a Gravatar-enabled blog using that email address, your comment will have your beautiful image instead of the boring generic one. It’ll even roll back out to any comment you’ve posted in the past.
“So just how many blogs are ‘Gravatar-enabled’?”, you ask? Well, Gravatars have been integrated into nearly every major blogging platform (WordPress, Blogger, Movable Type, etc); they’re ubiquitous on the web. There’s a very good chance that every single blog you frequent supports Gravatars.
Now that you’re completely convinced of the merits and importance of getting a Gravatar, make it happen, son! Go to http://en.gravatar.com/, and either create a new (and free) account, or tie it to the (also free) WordPress.com account that you likely already have. Convenient! All that’s left is to walk through their extraordinarily easy process of adding email addresses and images, and you’re good to go. Simple! The whole process takes less than five minutes. Speedy!
By doing so, you’ll be doing humanity as a whole a favor. You and your comments look more legit, Bloggers’ comment listings look more fresh and dynamic, and Everyone Else gets a better comment-reading experience. Humanity as a whole.
So, once again, I beg you. Please get a Gravatar. Speaking on the behalf of bloggers everywhere, we vastly prefer our blogs’ comment listings be filled with actual representations of you than an image that does nothing but scream “I don’t have a Gravatar!”
At least scream something more productive.
I’m desperately looking for a Like.
OK, lets see if my gravitar worked. :)
By golly, I guess it did! :)
Simple but effective. Hopefully this will get more people on board.
I think I’m going to steal this post word-for-word.
I ♥ you for this post. Everyone needs a Gravatar.
Done and done. Thank, buddy. I think you wrote this specifically for me.
Is it okay if I re-tweet this post? Or could you tweet about this post so that I can re-tweet your tweet? Okay, that is confusing. How about I just plain drop a tweet about this post because it is super fly.