Gravatar is a service that allows you to have an avatar image that follows you around the web. Sites that support Gravatars (Globally Recognized Avatars) just ask Gravatar.com whether your (encrypted) email address has an image assigned to it. If it does, then it pulls the image from the server and inserts it next to the comment you left.

It’s fairly easy to add Gravatar support to your site, and even easier to get your own Gravatar. For instructions on adding support to your site, read the documentation. You can use PHP, Perl, Coldfusion, or any language really. Plus, if you’re lazy, there are plugins available for major platforms such as Wordpress.

Why should you add Gravatars next to your blog comments?

• It makes it easier to recognize commentators…including you. Who cares about comment highlighting when you can just have a personal image next to your comments.
• You’re giving your readers the ability to personalize their comments a little more.
• Tons of people have Gravatars. If you allow theirs to show-up on your blog, they may comment more frequently.

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could have an avatar image, like you can have on a forum, that follows you around the web? With Gravatar you can. You just sign-up, upload an image, and assign it to your email address(es). From then on, your “Gravatar” will appear on any Gravatar-equipped blog you comment on.

Here’s how it works:

• You register and set-up your Gravatar.
• You go about your business online as usual.
• If you comment on a Gravatar-equipped blog using one of the email addresses you added to your Gravatar acccount, your avatar will be automagically added next to your comment.

Is that cool, or what? Now that Automattic owns Gravatar, the service is getting even better. Features that previously required payment are now freely available to everyone. Now anyone can have “multiple e-mail addresses and more than 2 uploaded avatars to choose from.”