(Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes)
♪ Who… ♪ are you… ♪?
♫ Who who… ♫
♫ who who… ♫
♬ Who the eff are you! ♬
— The Who from “Kids Are All Right”
These words resound in my head, bringing back glorious days of screaming around the hills west of Bloomington, Indiana in a 1977 Buick Century Regal blasting FM radio. The Who was big that year. Good times. Sounded a little like this:
Oh wait.
That was actually Heart in ‘77. Barracuda. This Who album hadn’t been released yet. Darn. But you should never let the facts interfere with a good story, &c.
The glory days… I hear everyone under 41 retching. Rest assured, I’ll be back to Ambient, Deep House and Down Tempo shortly.
So, who are you? Why don’t you leave a link? How about your Gravatar? Don’t have a gravatar? Well that’s no darn good at all!
Gravatar!
Gravatars have now become Important. I believe a good gravatar image will actually help drive traffic your way. It certainly can’t hurt.
From the Gravatar.com website:
Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site?
Getting a gravatar is really easy: just register an email address for each different gravatar you desire to use. If you don’t have one yet, you should go get one right now at gravatar.com.
But don’t take my word for it, read more about the benefits of having your own gravatar:
- David Risley provides some useful tips for implementing gravatar support in WordPress: Using Gravatars On Your Blog – Why And How. David is an expert at personal branding as well, and notes that the global aspect of “gravatar” is a critical feature for carrying your brand with you, no matter where you appear on the internet.
- Thord Daniel Hedengren lays it out clearly in Gravatars: Why Both Commenters and Publishers Should Use It. He covers both the author and publisher side, recommending gravatar support for both. Fortunately, WordPress has this built in these days.
- Sean Hodge has an excellent article on Branding Yourself With Gravatars. Read about how to create gravatars to brand yourself in different contexts.
Good stuff.
Bonus Benefit: When your comments get caught in my Spam queue, like CommentLuv’s Andy Baily’s, and Elmot’s did recently, I’ll be able to see your smiling face and fish you out.
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{ 13 comments }
Gone are the dark ages of uploading an avatar to every site you visit!
I’ve been meaning to spruce up my single post pages on my own site. Why I never thought of putting my own gravatar on the page until I read this? Who knows.
Great point about the ease of finding a comment in spam folder when Akismet gets too excited hoarding stuff to itself.
jan geronimo´s last blog ..New Twitter Social Proof: Are You on Everyone’s List Yet?
@K, good idea, you should get on that right away.
Folks, KP’s website is *fantastic* Since this is his first time commenting here, please go visit.
@jan, I was pretty surprised to see them myself. Usually I just whack the whole queue without even looking at it, very glad I looked at it this time.
Excellent point. Most of the time, I do not like to interact with someone who does not have a gravatar. And when I mean a gravatar, I would prefer a picture of a friendly face and not a freaking dinosaur that says, dinoman:)
Hmmm, “gravatar”, where the hell did this name came from? That’s something I never did figure out. Anyway, I do agree with you that having one is not only important for your “branding”, but also to easily spot you in case “Mr Akismet” suddenly decides that you are a naughty boy..
DiTesco´s last blog ..AdSense Expands With Promoted YouTube Videos
Gravatar: Globally recognized avatar
K. Praslowicz´s last blog ..Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) Street Shooting
@DiTesco,
Gravatar = Globally Recognized Avatar
Pretty clever really.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..Techsmith did it again with Jing Pro… sort of
I’m under 41 and I didn’t retch! Good call on gravatar’s too, didn’t realise you could have multiple ones. Nice!
Andrew´s last blog ..You only need one idea…
@Andrew, It’s a great video, worth watching all the way through to where they clown around at the end.
I’ll find a way to put up Barracuda though. I saw Heart do Dreamboat Annie in concert, sang Barracuda too. Rocked.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..Techsmith did it again with Jing Pro… sort of
I really should go through my gravatars and get everything sorted out.
Sean´s last blog ..How to Print a Woodblock
Dave,
You’re absolutely right about how important it is to have a gravatar. I remember when I first started commenting on blogs how professional it looked when people had a nice gravatar. I was unknowingly drawn to their comments and found them to be more credible (even if they weren’t).
The psychological impact of seeing who is saying something is very surprising and worth taking advantage of (especially for women).
Blake @ Props Blog Rewiews´s last blog ..The Ten Commandments of Comment Etiquette
@Sean, yes, you should. =)
@Blake, it really does make a difference, I am positive.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..Blog World Expo Recap: 8 Proven Monetization Strategies For Media Producers
I can’t stand when people don’t have a gravatar it’s so annoying, not to mention it’s free and gives you some kind of identity.
Extreme John´s last blog ..Sunday Smash Blogging Tips and Weekly Link Luv
@EJ – Gravatars became part of the web pretty much instantly. I put it off just until they got the API out there and in use.
Dr Wordpress!´s last blog ..WordPress Architecture – The Building Blocks of Web Publishing
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