Get Yourself a Gravatar While They’re Still Hot!

If you are wondering what a gravatar is, let me explain. A gravatar is a 80×80 pixel image that you can use to visually represent yourself on the web. Use the same email address to create an account, upload a pic and once it’s approved, it’ll automatically show up. You can use the same avatar image on any Gravatar-enabled website or blog. Just use the same email address and it will automatically show up. Gravatar uses MPAA-style ratings so that they can ensure only appropriate images show up on our site.Gravatar allows you to upload a picture from your computer (the file I used was 2.0 MB) and crop it from there. Gravatar has a cropping tool that allows you to easily do this. One thing I did notice is that the cropping tool gives you much more control when the picture is at a higher resolution. Once your gravatar is cropped and ready, you get to rate it: G, PG, R, X, XX, XXX, XXXX, etc… There is a potential for abuse here, but it is probably a good thing that they decided to allow users to rate their own gravatars.

Gravatar is a pretty simple service and makes it easy to show your own picture on the web. They give you so many options to choose from, but if you decide you want to add a gravatar, then you’ll have to cough up $10 a year. I foresee a significant problem with gravatar as far as abuse goes, however. I don’t see Gravatar surviving very long unless the service secures some serious funding, and right now ten dollars is a little much to pay for gravatars. I sure wouldn’t pay any more. Only time will tell…