Q- I’ve notice more and more blog comments have pictures of the commentor (or another cartoon image) next to their comment. I was wondering what the are and how do I get one?

The images that you are noticing are called Gravatars - a shortened version of the full name Globally Recognised Avatars. An Avatar is a sanskrit word and in the online world it is the indentifying image that represents a person. They have been in forums and games for many years.

Unlike an avatar being fixed within a single application, a gravatar is an avatar image that follows you from blog to blog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites.

In order to use it across mutiple sites the gravatar is associated with a nominated email address and each time that you use that email address in a blog comment, on a gravatar enabled site, your gravatar will be displayed next to your comment.

Gravatars were initialy created by the guys from Automattic, the same people that brought us Wordpress.

I expect that you are busting to get one and want to know the many convoluted steps, or special handshakes, needed to get one. Follow closely …

1. Go to www.gravatar.com
2. Click on the signup now link
3. Enter your email address
4. They will send you a confirmation link to setup your gravatar account
5. Upload the image you want to use as your avatar.

Tip: Make sure the image that you are wanting to use is already down at a reasonable small size (no more than about 80 x 80 pixels).

Once your image is upload then your gravatar will start appearing on blog comments everywhere.

I noticed that very few of the commentors here at Working Solo have a Gravatar so why not leave me a comment here and share your gravatar and thoughts.

(The image at the top of this post are of some of the gravatar-enabled commentors here).