No I am not talking about the movie although I highly recommend watching it in 3D. And if you ask me, it’s so far the best movie of the year 2010… but I digress.
The avatar I am referring to is a small image of roughly 60 x 60 pixels you associate with your email address. That online avatar, also sometimes called gravatar icon, is displayed beside your comments on blogs and other social media networks where you join the conversation.
In a way, you are introducing yourself to that online community, adding a name badge people can associate/recognize you with. Most blogs, if not all, do not display your email address so it won’t be harvested by spammers whenever you leave a comment. Also most people do not use their actual name when filling out the comment form – for personal reason or SEO strategy. Because of all the above facts, using an avatar is the next best way to identify yourself while protecting your identity.
You can use your picture to create an avatar. There are countless tools available online to help you convert your photo into an avatar look-a-like. I personally use comic cartoons and other funny characters to project (not protect) my identity online in social networks and leaving comments on blogs.
Online avatars enhance the visual appeal of the comments section of a given post. Without gravatars that area would be just made of long paragraphs of text: it can be pretty boring.
Showing avatars not online provides a little distraction (fun), they help guide the eyes by adding a spatial break between different comment sections.
But foremost gravatars allow blog readers to put a face – even it’s not a real one – in other words, associate images with the comments authors. As already mentioned, you can use your own photo resized and converted into an avatar. You can also choose an avatar from a gallery of free unique artworks.
You set your avatar once and “it follows you” from then on throughout the entire worldwide web. Whenever you use the associated email address in social networks such as twitter, blogs or forums, you avatar is automatically displayed without any extra effort on your part. There is no need to upload the avatar image on multiple websites.
In the next article, I will provide details on how to setup an avatar. So stay tuned.
