Now with 10% more ego!
It’s a pretty cute idea, and much less threatening than the full-on identity management concepts like Passport and Typekey. Basically you just associate an image with your email address and that’s it! Any blog [or web page] can request that image from a centralized server, and wha-a-a-lah! Portable thumbnail! See the comments section for example of how it appears…
I first encountered gravatars on Binary Bonsai, and as you can see from this page, it’s quite a nice way to identify commenters.
Your gravatar will be fetched automatically based on [a securely hashed version of] your email address, and because it is stored centrally if you change or create it it will automatically appear on any gravatar enabled page where you have commented, even if you left your comment *before* getting a gravatar.
Neat huh?
This is a very cool feature. My avatar is waiting approval, thought I would deposit a comment in advance.
Excellent! Now everyone else must get one too!