Diff between Gravatar enabled and disabled.
Buddy Query

What is Gravatar and how to get one – BuddyQuery

Here’s answer to one of the queries asked by a fellow blogger. Sometimes simple things can confuse us and many of a times we see/use things without even realizing what it is. If you fall in either of the categories when it comes to Gravatar, you will find this post very helpful.

This BuddyQuery post takes along the trend of explaining tech stuff the simple way like earlier I had posted how you could download videos from YouTube directly and also how to stop Google Buzz updates from Inbox. This post is all about “Gravatar”.

Disclaimer– No, this is not an advanced, new-age version of “Avatar-3D”, infact its not connected to that at all.. Sorry if this information was a disappointment but come on, its high time now that you let the Avatar fever pass. 😛

What is Gravatar?

Gravatar in simple words is your online avatar, a visual representation of you for the online world. It stands for Globally Recognized Avatar. And what makes it special is, you can upload one avatar and be sure that it is displayed on every blog that supports gravatar. Sounds confusing? Well, don’t worry, it will be clearer as you read on.

So you can choose an image in jpeg or png format and upload to your Gravatar account. Once you do that, the image will appear on all the blogs/websites that support Gravatar when you leave a comment. For example, though here at ewebbuddy we do not display gravatar, if it would have been used and if you leave a comment to this post and you have set a Gravatar, the image would have appeared next to your comment! Cool, huh?

Why use Gravatar?

If gives a face to the comment and in a way also people start knowing you because of the Gravatar. It’s better to interact the person face-to-face and gravatar tries to achieve the same. Following is example of Gravatar from one other popular site. The images next to the comments are Gravatar.

Incase, you leave a comment on a site which supports Gravatar but you haven’t enabled one for yourself yet, it will look like this:

Diff between Gravatar enabled and disabled.

How does Gravatar work?

Its pretty simple. You goto ‘s Gravatar’s website and upload your image. After that whenever you leave a comment on a blog that supports Gravatar, you need to either use your username or your email id which you had used when registering on Gravatar’s site. If any of the two match, your uploaded image is displayed!

How to set your Gravatar?

  1. Goto to Gravatar’s website
  2. Register yourself an account (takes 2 mins)
  3. Upload your desired Visual Identity
  4. Start posting comments and watch your Gravatar in action.

Hope you found this post helpful and you will not look dumb if someone asks you about Gravatar! 🙂 If you have more queries related to Gravatar, do post a comment below and let me know.

Also, do post your tech queries in the “Skribit” box in the sidebar and I will try to post their answers at the earliest.. Someone has rightly said, “Learning should never stop!”

Piyush Agarwal
Piyush Agarwal is a part-time freelance webdesigner who loves to play with design and the web around. You can check out his designs on Technix Designs. He is also into Theatre and Photography.
http://www.piyushagarwal.com

4 Replies to “What is Gravatar and how to get one – BuddyQuery

  1. Hi. this post is really very useful for me, Its a nice post on good topic. I want to ask, is you are using Gravatar for your site?

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