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.
Aug 30th at 2:17 am
Sweet action. I also like the idea of Gravatar.
Aug 30th at 2:18 am
We could definitely enable the avatars to be accessed and hotlinked by an email MD5 sum, just like Gravatar.
Aug 30th at 2:20 am
Avatars in the tag surfer would be lovely.
Aug 30th at 2:42 am
This is quite awesome!
My Suggestion: maybe have it up top the WP menu bar?
Aug 30th at 2:47 am
Avatars are awesome!
Aug 30th at 2:54 am
Very cool *searches for picture*
Aug 30th 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?
Aug 30th at 3:36 am
Three words: Awesome, awesome…AWESOME!!!
Aug 30th 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??
Aug 30th at 4:10 am
Um..how about a Yahoo! style avatar – create your own and then it shows up in the sidebar.
Aug 30th 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.
Aug 30th at 4:16 am
Oh, BTW … could you add it to the forums?
Aug 30th 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.
Aug 30th at 4:27 am
Love it! Put them everywhere
Aug 30th at 4:38 am
wouldn’t it be better if you guys Enabled Gavatars
Aug 30th 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.
Aug 30th 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.
Aug 30th 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
Aug 30th at 5:02 am
cool! how’s my avatar looks like?
Aug 30th at 5:03 am
thats a great new option
Thanx
Aug 30th 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
Aug 30th at 5:14 am
Thanks for this and I hope all the Themes has this function on the comments too.
Aug 30th at 5:19 am
This would kick butt:
http://APIKEY.wordpress.com/EMAIL_MD5/SIZE
Aug 30th at 5:33 am
yey!
Aug 30th at 5:37 am
Thanks for another great feature. Love it.
Aug 30th 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.
Aug 30th at 5:41 am
Wow that is cool!
Aug 30th 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.
Aug 30th at 5:59 am
Swell! Ditto on gravatar and to just allow it to be put anywhere.
Aug 30th at 6:17 am
A great idea
Aug 30th at 6:19 am
This new feature is great! Thanks a lot!
Aug 30th at 6:19 am
This is my avatar.
Aug 30th 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!
Aug 30th at 6:51 am
This is sooo cool!!!
Aug 30th 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.jpgAug 30th at 6:54 am
Cool…good feature!
Aug 30th at 6:54 am
This is sooo cool!! Woohoo!
Aug 30th at 7:31 am
This is a wonderful upgrade!
Thanks Folks.
] marcomkc [
Aug 30th at 7:40 am
Hmm, lets see now…
Aug 30th at 7:54 am
Cool!
Aug 30th at 8:14 am
To see how mine looks,
I’d have to join in somehow,
And so I now have
–g
Aug 30th at 8:21 am
How can you read my mind?
Nice work Matt..
Aug 30th at 8:21 am
Great new feature! It adds life to the comments!
Aug 30th at 8:27 am
So Delicious…
Aug 30th 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.
Aug 30th at 8:33 am
Hey, cool. Is this really me on the left hand side …
Aug 30th at 8:37 am
good work
Thanx
Aug 30th at 9:34 am
Cooooooooooooooooooool
Aug 30th at 9:37 am
wowoowo!!!!
Aug 30th at 10:36 am
Test
Aug 30th at 10:38 am
nice!!!
Aug 30th at 10:44 am
Dont like the question mark showing up beside my comments
Aug 30th 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”…
Aug 30th at 11:38 am
Shem, then upload an avatar! It’s easy.
Aug 30th at 11:45 am
Nice idea.
Aug 30th at 12:07 pm
yeah!
Aug 30th at 12:11 pm
That’s a wonderfull new feature !! Keep up the good work !!
Aug 30th at 12:12 pm
go go go avatar in the hole
Aug 30th 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…
Aug 30th at 12:22 pm
this is very nice feature.
i like it very much
thanks to wordpress.com
Aug 30th at 12:33 pm
Hey that’s cool! It’s great to see WordPress adding new features often!
Aug 30th at 12:44 pm
teste!
Aug 30th at 12:44 pm
is this thing working? it’s a great feature. thanks
Aug 30th at 12:54 pm
That is purty cool!
Aug 30th at 1:15 pm
this is neat
Aug 30th at 1:15 pm
thanx … wordpress keeps on rockin …
Aug 30th at 1:19 pm
Cool feature!
It doesn’t seem to be working in every blog comment, is it an option?
Aug 30th at 1:33 pm
Hey this is cool…… Something that I waited for …Thanks Matt… WordPress.com Rocks.. !!! I already brough 6 friends here
Aug 30th at 1:49 pm
Bravo, WordPress roxx.
Aug 30th at 1:53 pm
Excellent !
Aug 30th at 2:03 pm
Cool! Totally agree with the Gravatar feature.
Aug 30th at 2:30 pm
the best got even better.
Aug 30th at 2:47 pm
How about use them as our favicons!?
Aug 30th at 3:19 pm
Oh no. Now we get to see the faces as well as have to read the blogs!!
Aug 30th at 3:20 pm
Very cool — what a great idea. Thank you!
Aug 30th at 3:24 pm
It’s a wonderful feature.
Aug 30th at 3:28 pm
Me encanto esta idea! Gracias!
Aug 30th at 3:29 pm
Very cool!
Aug 30th at 3:29 pm
Avatastic!
Aug 30th at 3:33 pm
…is it showing up?
Aug 30th 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.
Aug 30th at 3:38 pm
nice !
Hey, Ho! (not in a bad way
) let’s go!
Aug 30th 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 !
Aug 30th 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.
Aug 30th 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.
Aug 30th at 4:13 pm
do the avatars appear on trackbacks too?
Aug 30th 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).
Aug 30th at 4:14 pm
great!
Aug 30th at 4:18 pm
Oh sweet
.
Aug 30th at 4:46 pm
brilliant idea
Aug 30th at 5:14 pm
Yay. Me gravatar is me avatar. This’s neat.
Aug 30th 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?
Aug 30th at 5:41 pm
Cool. Can’t wait to have this on my blog!
Aug 30th at 5:44 pm
what a great new feature
mama kelly
Aug 30th 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.
Aug 30th at 6:29 pm
good one… thank you.
Aug 30th at 6:53 pm
Hey, nice idea!