- Gravatar
Gravatar (an abbreviation for "globally recognized avatar") is a concept for globally-unique avatars which was invented by Tom Werner.
On Gravatar, users can register an account based on their email address, and upload an avatar to be associated with the account. Gravatar
plugin s are available for popular blogging software; when the user posts a comment on such ablog that requires ane-mail address , the blogging software checks whether that e-mail address has an associated avatar at Gravatar. If so, the Gravatar is shown along with the comment.A Gravatar avatar can be up to 512
pixel s wide, is always square and is displayed at 80 by 80 pixels by default. [http://en.gravatar.com/site/implement/url] If the uploaded avatar is larger or smaller, the avatar is scaled appropriately. Each Gravatar is rated with anMPAA -style age recommendation, which allowswebmaster s to control the content of the Gravatars displayed on theirwebsite .To eliminate spam, e-mail addresses are hashed with the
MD5 cryptographic hash function . This preventsspambot s from harvesting e-mail addresses.Gravatar 2.0
For some time the Gravatar service remained unmaintained. The maker became busy with working on a new version of the service, as Gravatar's popularity grew and more bandwidth was required. On
15 February ,2007 , "Gravatar 2.0" was launched. Besides an improved server script, users also noticed other improvements, such as being able to crop and use an image already hosted on theInternet . Support for two gravatars per account was added, between which the user can easily switch. "Gravatar Premium" was also launched, which allows unlimited e-mail addresses and Gravatars per account.On
11 June ,2007 , Tom Werner announced that 32,000 new users had signed up since the launch of Gravatar 2.0. [http://blog.gravatar.com/2007/06/11/updated-croppr-stats/]On October 18, 2007
Automattic acquired Gravatar. After doing so they made all premium services free, increase the speed in which avatars were served by three fold, and refunded those who had bought premium services in the past 60 days, among other things. [http://blog.gravatar.com/2007/10/18/automattic-gravatar/]External links
* [http://www.gravatar.com Gravatar.com]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
