Posted: Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 2:14 am. Filed in Features, WordPress.com.
New Feature: Avatars
On your profile you can now upload an image to be associated with your account, also known as an avatar.
We’re still rolling out the places these will show up, but for now you can see them in the comments section of this blog.
Why not upload an avatar and then leave a comment to show it off? Any ideas for how we can use avatars?
Update: You asked for it, you got it. There are now avatars in the latest posts, tag surfer, and my comments pages.
Update 2: There are now avatars in the forums.
Update 3: The Mac Daddy has written a great tutorial on the feature.
August 30th, 2006 at 2:17 am
Sweet action. I also like the idea of Gravatar.
August 30th, 2006 at 2:18 am
We could definitely enable the avatars to be accessed and hotlinked by an email MD5 sum, just like Gravatar.
August 30th, 2006 at 2:20 am
Avatars in the tag surfer would be lovely.
August 30th, 2006 at 2:42 am
This is quite awesome!
My Suggestion: maybe have it up top the WP menu bar?
August 30th, 2006 at 2:47 am
Avatars are awesome!
August 30th, 2006 at 2:54 am
Very cool *searches for picture*
August 30th, 2006 at 3:19 am
On the front page of WordPress.com for the “Hot Posts” list, display the author’s avatar next to the post title maybe?
August 30th, 2006 at 3:36 am
Three words: Awesome, awesome…AWESOME!!!
August 30th, 2006 at 4:02 am
Just checking to see if my Avatar works – had problems uploading picture – but otherwise great idea
Perhaps use it as a sidebar widget??
August 30th, 2006 at 4:10 am
Um..how about a Yahoo! style avatar – create your own and then it shows up in the sidebar.
August 30th, 2006 at 4:15 am
It is a nice idea. I suggest allowing the avatar to display right next to the post. It would a great way to distinish between people in group blogs.
August 30th, 2006 at 4:16 am
Oh, BTW … could you add it to the forums?
August 30th, 2006 at 4:23 am
Wonderful feature. I have no words can ever express the advantages of feature like this! It is more interactive!! Keep it up..
Hope WP will give more and more features for its community.
Zeezat.
August 30th, 2006 at 4:27 am
Love it! Put them everywhere
August 30th, 2006 at 4:38 am
wouldn’t it be better if you guys Enabled Gavatars
August 30th, 2006 at 4:41 am
Can we block avatars on our site, or edit them out of comments if they are inappropriate for our site? Not my site (very little is inappropriate there), it’s more a theoretical question.
August 30th, 2006 at 4:44 am
If we did that people would have to register for another website to have an avatar, and it might put an undue load on a free service. Remember we’re doing close to 2 million pageviews a day here, which would translate to many times that avatar image requests.
August 30th, 2006 at 4:51 am
Good point matt. What I meant was there were a lot of people who comment on the blogs who are not registered at wordpress. So enabling Gravatars for these people would seem fair
I just uploaded my Avatar but it not showing up
. I am on a blog with multiple authors. scribez.wordpress(.)com
August 30th, 2006 at 5:02 am
cool! how’s my avatar looks like?
August 30th, 2006 at 5:03 am
thats a great new option
Thanx
August 30th, 2006 at 5:09 am
API anyone? query the avatar by user email, but using the api key to avoid abuse, so that it be used as an alternative to gravatar or in conjunction with it… that will be nice
August 30th, 2006 at 5:14 am
Thanks for this and I hope all the Themes has this function on the comments too.
August 30th, 2006 at 5:19 am
This would kick butt:
http://APIKEY.wordpress.com/EMAIL_MD5/SIZE
August 30th, 2006 at 5:33 am
yey!
August 30th, 2006 at 5:37 am
Thanks for another great feature. Love it.
August 30th, 2006 at 5:40 am
Hey, nice to see real people here
I would suggest an option to show avatars on the top of each post, near the post title. But *only* for blogs with multiple authors. Solo bloggers showing up their pretty face everywhere would be annoying, I guess.
Thanks for this new feature and for this excellent blog engine that WordPress is. I’m amazed.
August 30th, 2006 at 5:41 am
Wow that is cool!
August 30th, 2006 at 5:51 am
somethings Weird going on I can’t see my avatar in this comment box but I can see it on the My comments Page.
I don’t like the default Icon could you guys change to the Icon that the K2 guys show when someone doesn’t have a Avatar.
August 30th, 2006 at 5:59 am
Swell! Ditto on gravatar and to just allow it to be put anywhere.
August 30th, 2006 at 6:17 am
A great idea
August 30th, 2006 at 6:19 am
This new feature is great! Thanks a lot!
August 30th, 2006 at 6:19 am
This is my avatar.
August 30th, 2006 at 6:26 am
So great! I would like to put it in the sidebar widgets–>text. This offers the possibility to tell about the blog, including the picture of the author!
August 30th, 2006 at 6:51 am
This is sooo cool!!!
August 30th, 2006 at 6:53 am
Mark, wouldn’t that expose the secret API key publicly?
We should probably put it on a subdomain, say
avatars.wordpress.com/e/EMAIL_HASH-size.jpgavatars.wordpress.com/username-size.jpgAugust 30th, 2006 at 6:54 am
Cool…good feature!
August 30th, 2006 at 6:54 am
This is sooo cool!! Woohoo!
August 30th, 2006 at 7:31 am
This is a wonderful upgrade!
Thanks Folks.
] marcomkc [
August 30th, 2006 at 7:40 am
Hmm, lets see now…
August 30th, 2006 at 7:54 am
Cool!
August 30th, 2006 at 8:14 am
To see how mine looks,
I’d have to join in somehow,
And so I now have
–g
August 30th, 2006 at 8:21 am
How can you read my mind?
Nice work Matt..
August 30th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Great new feature! It adds life to the comments!
August 30th, 2006 at 8:27 am
So Delicious…
August 30th, 2006 at 8:32 am
Hey its all working fine. So when will we see this on all the Themes. Yeah I know thats a lot of hardwork wish I could help out
.
Once again the default Icon is just not cool.
August 30th, 2006 at 8:33 am
Hey, cool. Is this really me on the left hand side …
August 30th, 2006 at 8:37 am
good work
Thanx
August 30th, 2006 at 9:34 am
Cooooooooooooooooooool
August 30th, 2006 at 9:37 am
wowoowo!!!!
August 30th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Test
August 30th, 2006 at 10:38 am
nice!!!
August 30th, 2006 at 10:44 am
Dont like the question mark showing up beside my comments
August 30th, 2006 at 11:10 am
and you not to have different avatars for different “moods”, like one for “Happy” other for angry and so on… After, when someone writes a coment with
and 
they will be automatically shown on the left site of the “Logged in as Rui Martins”…
August 30th, 2006 at 11:38 am
Shem, then upload an avatar! It’s easy.
August 30th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Nice idea.
August 30th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
yeah!
August 30th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
That’s a wonderfull new feature !! Keep up the good work !!
August 30th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
go go go avatar in the hole
August 30th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
yeah, and what if my avatar is not as tall as wide?
i cant crop it normally after the upload
this feature should be tuned up a bit…
August 30th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
this is very nice feature.
i like it very much
thanks to wordpress.com
August 30th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Hey that’s cool! It’s great to see WordPress adding new features often!
August 30th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
teste!
August 30th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
is this thing working? it’s a great feature. thanks
August 30th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
That is purty cool!
August 30th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
this is neat
August 30th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
thanx … wordpress keeps on rockin …
August 30th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Cool feature!
It doesn’t seem to be working in every blog comment, is it an option?
August 30th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
Hey this is cool…… Something that I waited for …Thanks Matt… WordPress.com Rocks.. !!! I already brough 6 friends here
August 30th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Bravo, WordPress roxx.
August 30th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
Excellent !
August 30th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
Cool! Totally agree with the Gravatar feature.
August 30th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
the best got even better.
August 30th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
How about use them as our favicons!?
August 30th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Oh no. Now we get to see the faces as well as have to read the blogs!!
August 30th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Very cool — what a great idea. Thank you!
August 30th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
It’s a wonderful feature.
August 30th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Me encanto esta idea! Gracias!
August 30th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Very cool!
August 30th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Avatastic!
August 30th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
…is it showing up?
August 30th, 2006 at 3:36 pm
Avatars that show up in posts are really needed for group blogs ’cause some of the themes don’t display the author name.
It would widen the number of themes that could be used for group blogs. Maybe have an option in admin to show the avatar of post author in post—default off since most blogs are single person blogs. Then group blog owners would have the option activating it.
August 30th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
nice !
Hey, Ho! (not in a bad way
) let’s go!
August 30th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
well thats a good idea indeed
just for the ones who put a picture, i mean the other, who dont have avatars, it possible not to have the “?”
(it’s just a suggestion, i don’t mind i think the avatar suff is great)
Also in the tag surfer, everything we write is moved i mean it’s like this :
avatar title
picture
text
Cant it be like this? :
avatar title
picture
text
Well done and thanks anyway !
August 30th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
Check out a cool avatar platform by the team at Oddcast (www.oddcast.com). You can create animated characters that speak and even follow the mouse movement. Very slick product. Avatars need to be representations of YOU, so shouldn’t it be more than a still shot image? That’s a photo, not a virtual representation. I created my own character through Oddcast, which I can change, edit and even add my own voice or use their text to speech functionality. I recommend using your own voice (through a mic or phone) – much more authentic. Kudos to the guys at WordPress for recognizing the need for virtual avatars. Everyone should have the option to create one of these characters in their dashboard and then have it appear on all comments, etc.
August 30th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
This is why I’ve abandoned running my own copy of WordPress.org.
WordPress.com rocks!
You keep improving! And The base package is absolutely free!!
I have a feeling I’m going to like everything you have in store for us.
August 30th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
do the avatars appear on trackbacks too?
August 30th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Cool feature! In the comments section here the avatars are on top of the usernames and dates though (I use Opera).
August 30th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
great!
August 30th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Oh sweet
.
August 30th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
brilliant idea
August 30th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Yay. Me gravatar is me avatar. This’s neat.
August 30th, 2006 at 5:22 pm
i’m sure i’m not the first person to suggest this… what about a sidebar widget with the avatar and profile information?
August 30th, 2006 at 5:41 pm
Cool. Can’t wait to have this on my blog!
August 30th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
what a great new feature
mama kelly
August 30th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
great work on the avatars! I know the perfect place to use them: make them the favicons for people’s blogs! Perhaps this could just work for those who have paid for CSS customization… anyway, it would be totally awesome.
August 30th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
good one… thank you.
August 30th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
Hey, nice idea!