Gravatars Everywhere
You may remember a little while back we bought Gravatar. We now have the infrastructure to a point where we feel comfortable sending a lot more traffic to it.
So we’ve enabled Gravatar support for all of WordPress.com.
What’s that mean? When you have a WordPress.com account you can have an avatar by your comment, but now if someone isn’t logged in or registered but they have a Gravatar attached to their email account that will show up by their comments too. You may see a few new faces around. 
Gravatars help build a sense of community around your readers, and keep people coming back to the comments.
Since doing this the requests to Gravatar have tripled to about 2,200 requests per second on average, with peaks to 3,000 per second.
Since there are 86,400 seconds in a day that takes us to 190,080,000 Gravatar requests per day, on average.
Dec 6th at 9:12 pm
Sweet. Nice addition! The value just keeps getting better and better…
Dec 6th at 9:16 pm
Great, you put a face to half my community!
(What a stat: 190 Million Gravatar requests a day… blow my mind!)
Keep up the great work!
(Ich blogge auf deutsch–I blog in German)
Dec 6th at 9:26 pm
Wow, thanks.
~*~Graser 10~*~
The goofy goober!
Dec 6th at 9:26 pm
Awesome stuff!!
Will make my sidebar prettier.
Dec 6th at 9:51 pm
Pretty cool, that´s why i saw something weird this morning. Thanks a lot
Dec 6th at 9:54 pm
Awesome dude! Thanks Matt! I was wondering if you guys were going to end up doing something like this. In fact, I was just thinking about that the other day.
Great work!
Dec 6th at 9:56 pm
Impressive, most impressive.
Dec 6th at 10:02 pm
Cool news! Avatars make online life less anonymous and more personal.
Dec 6th at 10:46 pm
oh cool. I thought it was just a feature you guys added. I didn’t realize you bought the company! I’ll have to create one.
Dec 6th at 11:07 pm
Cool thanks – are you planning on integrating this with OpenID?
Dec 6th at 11:17 pm
Very cool! Thank you.
Dec 6th at 11:50 pm
Hi Matt, this is great.
Will we also work the other way around? Do we get to see wordpress.com gravatars on self hosted WordPress blogs too?
Dec 6th at 11:51 pm
I’ve had a gravatar for commenting on other sites and it works really slick. Maybe we’ll see less of those mysterious while silhouettes.
Dec 6th at 11:58 pm
OK , I just logged out and tried it. One small detail. The gravatar shows up in the thread, but not in the widget for “recent comments”. Bummer.
Dec 7th at 12:18 am
Have to thank you WP guys for Gravatar and all your efforts. WP really deserve credit. I always feel extremely glad to see new features by WP. Thank you again for this wonderful Gravatar. May all your hopes, wishes & dreams come true on coming Christmas and at the event of coming New year 2008. Good luck- very nice. To visit my blog, Indus Asia Online Journal, please click the link; http://www.iaoj.wordpress.com
Dec 7th at 12:59 am
whoohoo!
And keep up the go(o)d work!
Dec 7th at 1:14 am
I just posted about the traffic numbers and I’m thinking the same thing here. What kind of infrastructure is WordPress using to keep everything running so smoothly?
Dec 7th at 1:22 am
I don’t know what this means but YAY! Keep up the awsome work wordpress, love your blogging tool!
~Adam
Dec 7th at 1:26 am
thanks Matt.
Dec 7th at 1:32 am
oh now I get it!
Dec 7th at 1:35 am
I love communities!! Im happy with yours news. Thanks WP.
Alicia Yabeta
Dec 7th at 1:40 am
I noticed that gravatars were working here at WP last week. Good job, guys!
Dec 7th at 1:51 am
This is what’s I really need it
Thanks Matt
Dec 7th at 3:06 am
Cool! Go WP!
Dec 7th at 3:11 am
just want to say think you doing good work Adeel Chowdhry all the best
Dec 7th at 3:19 am
Awesome numbers. Keep it up.
Dec 7th at 3:40 am
Thanks!
If I gave a crap it would be that much better!
Dec 7th at 3:43 am
Nice going! hurray!
Dec 7th at 3:52 am
Splendid!
Dec 7th at 3:53 am
Yap. this feature may definitely build a sense of belongingness, and family to all shades of wordpressers. Keep innovating, keep wordpressing!!
Dec 7th at 4:08 am
Awesome idea! This definitely gives some incentive for folks to come back to blogs and comment.
Dec 7th at 4:11 am
I still find ways to see how Gravatars work.. Do you have a sample page?
BTW, I signed up my e-mail addresses and avatars in Gravatars.
Thanks
Dec 7th at 4:27 am
Found it! I know how it works in WP.com. However, still not sure if it works in other sites.. Will try..
Thanks Matt.
Dec 7th at 4:40 am
Neat! Only getting bigger and better! I love what you guys have been doing. Thanks so much.
Dec 7th at 5:29 am
cool addition
Dec 7th at 5:32 am
coolness. i like.
Dec 7th at 6:44 am
You really know how to take care of us. Thanks.
Dec 7th at 7:00 am
Thats great news ! Me registering at once
Dec 7th at 7:05 am
Good.
Dec 7th at 7:38 am
Wonderful deed, boyz!
Hey, now tell me one thing… So, how do the non-registered readers get to know about this new facility? Any education program going on? I mean, there are quite some visitors to my blog who are regular ones… So, I’m asking in their context that how would they know about the gravatar and get it linked to their respective email accounts so as to have their pretty faces be seen? Is self-awareness, knowledge sharing and/or word-of-mouth the approach?
But any which way, this is going to be a boon-like for boosting up the feel good factor… Empowering communication… Hey?
Cheers, my friends!
Dec 7th at 8:12 am
Thanks you Matt !!!
Dec 7th at 8:29 am
Groovy!
Gravatars would make WP even more colorful and lively than it already is!
One Q: If the Email with the Gravatar registered to it is the same as the WP-registered Email?
Dec 7th at 8:31 am
Dec 7th at 8:39 am
good job, something that I expected.. and to be frank, you did it very fast, than I expected…
will try that out
Dec 7th at 9:12 am
Super!
Dec 7th at 9:28 am
nice! that’s great!!!
Dec 7th at 9:31 am
Its a great feature.
keep growing..
WP my ever loving blogging platform. I’ve introduced these WP to many people and they feel cool with WP.
The way WP interacts with people and technology is out standing and exclusive.
Wishes..
உதய தாரகை
Dec 7th at 10:40 am
Thanks for this nice feature Matt!
Dec 7th at 10:55 am
Sip, WP emang makin cihuy! gak perlu login, eh.. foto kita bisa langsung nampang!
makasih kang matt dkk
Dec 7th at 10:58 am
This is great! It’ll make a nice change to see faces instead of the blank boxes next to the comments from non-bloggers/non-Wordpress bloggers.
Dec 7th at 12:23 pm
wow!
really great and I love Gravatar
Dec 7th at 1:46 pm
*thumb up*
Dec 7th at 1:48 pm
It’s fantastic!
Another (of millions) reason to be with WordPress!
Dec 7th at 1:51 pm
Cool!
Thanks wp.com!
Dec 7th at 2:33 pm
Thank you. This is a very nice feature.
Dec 7th at 2:50 pm
very nice!
Dec 7th at 2:54 pm
Yeah, gmail!
Dec 7th at 2:58 pm
aha!!! that explains why people who don’t have a wordpress acount have pics in my comments… thanks!
Dec 7th at 3:33 pm
190,080,000?
Dec 7th at 3:36 pm
That’s awesome! I finally broke down and got one a few weeks ago, so I’m excited to see more custom icons around here.
Dec 7th at 3:39 pm
Some deep thoughts…Does a Gravitar have more Gravitas than an Avitar?
Dec 7th at 4:03 pm
I love Gravatar. You guys rock.
Dec 7th at 4:33 pm
Wow! that’s a lot of traffic! Any chance you can combine this with pavatar? Like each blog is an openid, it could also be your pavatar url… Just a thought…
Dec 7th at 4:54 pm
Very interesting!
Thanks!
Dec 7th at 5:19 pm
Wow, this is neat! Talking about new faces, it was about to anonymous recognition…
Dec 7th at 5:26 pm
Gravatars: For Non-registered WordPress Commentators
WordPress.com recently announced that their newest service, Gravatar, will now be implemented throughout WordPress.com. Why do I care to blog about this? To inform anyone who leaves comments on IsShouKenMei (or any other blog community) that you can no…
Dec 7th at 7:09 pm
Well it looks like it’s now time for me to gravatar.
Dec 7th at 7:11 pm
Awsome!!!!
thats amazing WordPress keep on going!
Dec 7th at 8:28 pm
Excellent addition!
Dec 7th at 9:03 pm
Dec 7th at 9:45 pm
Hey MAT sorry Hey KING MATT You Are My Love! You Are Better Man
Dec 7th at 10:01 pm
Wow, thats is cool
Dec 8th at 1:16 am
Crickey.
Dec 8th at 1:19 am
That’s great very usefull. Good work WP team!
Dec 8th at 2:16 am
that’s quite a lotactually.
Dec 8th at 2:17 am
Wow thats allot of Gravatars!
Dec 8th at 2:20 am
just test if this avatar work
Dec 8th at 8:26 am
nice
Dec 8th at 11:01 am
Im logged in and without a picture as an avatar i have a gravatar!
Dec 8th at 11:07 am
When are we getting our WP.com avatars functional on external Gravatar-enabled sites? I’m lazy!
Dec 8th at 7:56 pm
Interesting…
Dec 9th at 12:30 am
Really impressive
Dec 9th at 2:32 am
Cool.
No matter logging in with wordpress account or email, our avatar both still can be seen.
Thanks Mat
Dec 9th at 3:55 am
Have Gravatars been popular on any other networks? Will their use expand?
Dec 9th at 6:54 am
thats really cool feature..thanks..cheers
Dec 9th at 12:51 pm
What a huge number there are…
Dec 9th at 2:02 pm
love it thanks
Dec 9th at 3:14 pm
I think it would be a good idea if there was a message near the comment form that gravatars are enabled. I just get the feeling that some netizens just enter some phony email sometimes.
Dec 9th at 5:01 pm
thanks….nice feature
Dec 9th at 10:37 pm
Oh, look at me.
Dec 9th at 11:24 pm
Thank you Matt. I love gravatars. Very sexy.
Dec 10th at 1:33 am
wow, that’s a lot of requests!
Dec 10th at 4:23 am
test gravatar
Dec 10th at 7:15 am
wew. sweetest thing
Dec 10th at 11:13 am
Gravatar all the way ! yeah !