Ever wonder why some people’s profile pictures show up alongside comments they leave on other blogs?
Those folks are using a free service called Gravatar — which simply means “Globally Recognized Avatar.”
Gravatar associates your email address with your profile pic. Other sites (such as WordPress blogs) can then query the Gravatar service and say, “Hey, I have this email address…you got a picture to go with it?” Some WordPress themes and plugins, such as many of the ones from WooThemes, use them, too.
Setting this up takes just a couple of minutes, so head on over to Gravatar and create a free account. (If you already have a WordPress.com account, you can use that to log in). Then follow the steps to specify an email address and a profile pic to go with it. You can set up multiple email accounts (each with a different picture, if you want), so you only have to create one Gravatar account. Nice.
Even if your own site doesn’t use Gravatars (I’m looking at you, Blogger), it’s still a good idea to set this up for yourself — so when you leave comments on other blogs, your smiling mug will show up right along with them.
