Your gravatar: it’s not just for web pages any more!

December 27, 2007 | Posted by apokalyptik

Simon Menke wrote a Mac OSX 10.5 plugin for the address book which brings gravatars off the web site and into your contacts. Simon intuitively grasped something that we were planning on highlighting after doing some more work with the gravatar site and processes: gravatars are something that can be used almost anywhere. Sure the most common place you’ll see them now is on blog comments, but the sky truly is the limit. Way to go Simon!

address_book.jpg

Comments (49)

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49 Responses »

  1. Michael Says:
    December 27, 2007 at 9:01 pm

    Now that’s a clever way of using Gravatar–nice job. :)

  2. andy cochrane Says:
    December 27, 2007 at 11:17 pm

    i like this a lot and can’t wait to upgrade to 10.5 to give it a spin. a request for you fine gravatars folks: merge/work with openid. i would love to see services like yours, openid, and the forthcoming open source social timeline working hand in hand to create a far more integrated internet, one that doesn’t require us all to sign up a billion times and enter/maintain our data across hundreds of websites.

  3. Ivan Levashew Says:
    December 27, 2007 at 11:21 pm

    It’s 10.5 only!

  4. The AV Club Blog » Blog Archive » Gravatars Expand Beyond Comments: Says:
    December 27, 2007 at 11:28 pm

    [...] a little FYI: Gravatars are now available in OSX 10.5 to add to any of your contacts. This is hopefully the first of many forays into other parts of the world of information that [...]

  5. Jeffro2pt0 Says:
    December 27, 2007 at 11:31 pm

    I think the G in Gravatar stands for Global. So the more places my Gravatar will show up, the better.

  6. pjreview Says:
    December 28, 2007 at 2:31 am

    now thats totally cool of Simon to do that. If only someone can do the same with Windows PC, I’ll be happy to use it :D

  7. Jenny Says:
    December 28, 2007 at 5:14 am

    Ah but what about the people on Windowss!!

  8. Binary Blonde Says:
    December 28, 2007 at 5:44 am

    Very nifty, and a great start. In addition to email, I hope see it implemented in chat clients (Yes, GoogleTalk, I’m speaking to you.), forums and other social gathering places, among other things.

  9. huda Says:
    December 28, 2007 at 11:26 am

    Hope there will be more addressbook software use it.

  10. Tadd Says:
    December 28, 2007 at 1:45 pm

    That’s pretty cool. I’m a PC guy myself, but I’m pretty sure that if he did it for Mac someone will do it for PC.

    So .. if the ‘G’ stands for ‘Global’ what does the ‘r’ stand for?

  11. Cirofono Says:
    December 28, 2007 at 3:22 pm

    Then what the ‘r’ stands for? Is it “Global” in Engrish? “Grobaru”? :0)

  12. Avatars in Leopard « Breggologisch Says:
    December 28, 2007 at 3:25 pm

    [...] (via Gravatar) [...]

  13. Matt Ellsworth Says:
    December 28, 2007 at 4:09 pm

    Thats cool. I don’t use a mac – but nice hack.

  14. storymode Says:
    December 28, 2007 at 6:02 pm

    A firm step in the right direction. I don’t own a Mac (yet), but a stronger sense of personalization and identity, especially for a versatile application like OSX’s Address Book, is definitely the way to go.

    Wrote a rhetoric-driven blog entry supporting the exposure and spreading of Gravatars because I like the idea so much. A few of my visitors have already taken up the proposition.

    http://storymode.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/gravatars-for-non-registered-wordpress-commentators/

  15. Khürt Says:
    December 28, 2007 at 7:53 pm

    So far it has done nothing except slow down and crash the Address Book (running OS X 10.5.1)

  16. Gravatars para todas las ocasiones - Incubaweb 2.0 Bitácora del Software, Web 2.0, Beta, Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Open Source, .... Says:
    December 28, 2007 at 11:14 pm

    [...] Sitio oficial | 5xm.org Vía | Blog Gravatar [...]

  17. Apollo Says:
    December 28, 2007 at 11:48 pm

    This is a great development. I’d love to be able to import Gravatars into GMail address books as well, or at least Thunderbird.

  18. s Says:
    December 29, 2007 at 12:38 am

    nice one. looking forward to the expansion of gravatars as gravatars + openid could be the winning combination for the single sign on in the internet future :)

  19. Jamie Thingelstad Says:
    December 29, 2007 at 7:25 am

    Okay — I must be missing something since I tried to install this twice, logged out and back in as required, and it just wont show up for me. ??? Love this idea!

  20. L B Says:
    December 29, 2007 at 2:03 pm

    Fab!!! Excellent!

  21. Vikram Says:
    December 29, 2007 at 3:35 pm

    I absolutely love this concept! Its one of he important steps in Branding your website, blog , business or even yourself online.

    I have defined the same Gravatar for all my emails, to keep the branding going!

  22. michal Says:
    December 29, 2007 at 5:56 pm

    thats a nice idea … i would like it for outlook and skype if possible ;)

  23. Ehab Says:
    December 29, 2007 at 10:10 pm

    Ho ! Cool !

    Too bad I am a Windows user (XP) – but I believe within some time, it would be available for Vista as well.

    Best of luck guys !

  24. Gravats in Mac OSX 10.5 | Ehab.cc Says:
    December 29, 2007 at 10:23 pm

    [...] OS X 10.5 ? Grab this plugin to serve Gravatars in your address [...]

  25. FKG Says:
    December 30, 2007 at 10:18 am

    Does that mean we’ll be able to use them on instant messaging applications as well?

  26. Extreme Says:
    December 30, 2007 at 8:23 pm

    Really like the idea, ill finally be creating my first!

  27. Jauhari Says:
    December 30, 2007 at 8:56 pm

    Wow, this perfect, I will install on My Leopard ;)

  28. JohnH Says:
    December 31, 2007 at 2:41 am

    Nice. Thunderbird has had this for years.

  29. sam9 Says:
    December 31, 2007 at 2:06 pm

    sdferswewffewfsefes

  30. sam9 Says:
    December 31, 2007 at 2:07 pm

    hola

  31. David Says:
    December 31, 2007 at 6:43 pm

    Actually, it is supposed to stand for Globally. As in Globally Recognized Avatars. :) Gravatar. Right on the money about hoping it shows up everywhere though. :)

  32. Reyn Says:
    January 1, 2008 at 4:35 am

    That is so nice! Good job, Simon! :)

  33. Skunkie Says:
    January 1, 2008 at 4:36 am

    Now this is an awesome idea!

  34. Claude Gelinas Says:
    January 1, 2008 at 5:44 am

    At last, a good reason to embrace (and upgrade to) MacOS X Leopard ; )

  35. Gravatar se expande más alla de los blogs | Denken Über Says:
    January 2, 2008 at 10:12 pm

    [...] desde que fue adquirida por Automattic, está expandiéndose. Ahora hay disponible un plugin para el Address Book de Leopard y hasta uno para Thunderbird, para que cuando escribas un mail aparezca el avatar de la persona a [...]

  36. Gravatar se expande más alla de los blogs at Bitácora de Jh®! Web 2.0 Rulz Says:
    January 3, 2008 at 10:07 pm

    [...] desde que fue adquirida por Automattic, está expandiéndose. Ahora hay disponible un plugin para el Address Book de Leopard y hasta uno para Thunderbird, para que cuando escribas un mail aparezca el avatar de la persona a [...]

  37. tapaenelsuelo Says:
    January 5, 2008 at 5:26 pm

    Is it just for Mac?¿?¿?

  38. Tri Says:
    January 10, 2008 at 12:31 am

    Bodn amat ah

  39. Niecy Says:
    January 27, 2008 at 5:42 am

    I am having trouble viewing my avatar on any site. What did I do wrong?

  40. Cláudio Says:
    January 31, 2008 at 1:01 am

    Testing.

  41. Gravatar sur MacOs 10.5 at 18h25 Says:
    February 22, 2008 at 9:55 am

    [...] sur une application et non sur une page web. À tester dès que j’ai un 10.5 sous la main source Filed under Web.  | var blogTool = “WordPress”; var blogURL = [...]

  42. jupiterproject123 Says:
    March 13, 2008 at 11:07 pm

    I’m noticing some buggy behaviour in Address Book now since installing this: DB literally disappears from my desktop, even though it’s still open. When it finally reappears (usually when hitting ESC for some reason) I can no longer quit it normally, I have to force quit.

    I have no way of contacting the developer, and don’t know how to uninstall. His blog has closed comments.

  43. Encephalosponge » Upgrades Says:
    March 29, 2008 at 10:32 pm

    [...] it gets instantly changed all over the web. Gravatars can also be integrated into email clients and more. Expect this service to take off considerably over the next few [...]

  44. pablo sabucedo santos Says:
    March 30, 2008 at 4:55 am

    quiero un avatar no entiendo ingles

  45. moonlightgraham28 Says:
    April 7, 2008 at 5:12 pm

    Grrrrreat!

  46. tl Says:
    September 17, 2008 at 3:26 am

    @jupiterproject123,

    To uninstall delete the following file:
    /Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/Avatars.bundle

    Optionally, you can also delete the SIMBL directory (unless you are using it for some other plugins)
    /Library/InputManagers/SIMBL

  47. Evan Carroll Says:
    September 26, 2008 at 6:29 pm

    I love this concept (global avatars) but have no faith in major adoption… Instructing people that your centralized avatar support is a good idea when you don’t implement decentralized open authentication seems like a failure on the part of gravatar. I want the ability to put in my OpenId url. And to forward new clients with an openid url, and primary email address in the signup…

    You want me to refer people to sign up with your service just to get an avatar on my website? Are you crazy? You know how many private companies could make use of your service?? You know how many want to incur the support of being bothered with your authentication service? I could implement gravatar support now, but could I tell management to suggest gravatar on account creation: no — not in good faith.

  48. Adam Prall Says:
    March 1, 2009 at 4:14 pm

    Apokalyptik – the plugin’s gone offline, and the author’s blog is now missing. Does anyone have new info on it? I’ve just written Simon a message to ask for a copy and will post any updates I find here.
    Evan – how much are you paying for this service?

  49. Moritz Says:
    March 5, 2009 at 6:13 pm

    The link doesn’t work anymore, I redid a simple version myself, visit my blog, http://momo.brauchtman.net/2009/03/missing-link-update-contact-image-in-macs-address-book-using-gravatar/, to get it.

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