还记得Gravatar吗?2007年10月18日被 Automattic公司收购，将近两年了。我不知道你是如何认为的，我个人不觉得Gravatar 已成为主流。重新回顾下， Gravatar 的概念就是与电子邮件地址绑定的支持全球通用的头像。也就是说只要你通过Gravatar.com.网站注册服务，绑定邮箱地址，当你到任何支持 Gravatar的网站留言，这个网站就会根据你提供的邮箱地址显示出你的头像。

回顾下历史，至少2004年开始Gravatar概念就一直存在。至少在Web Archive 上有保存记录，不过越来越多的服务和软件并不支持他的服务，比如：Twitter、Facebook、phpBB、它们都有自己的处理头像的方式。并不支持Gravatar的服务， 尽管它提供了很多使用指南。

难道真的是每个系统都有自己的头像处理方式会更好吗？还是因为没有大声告知很多软件或服务的终端用户可以方便地使用内置的Gravatar系统？我 的建议是软件开发者可以开发他们自己的头像管理方案，但是请额外把对Gravatar的支持也建立起来。至少用这种方式，你可以衡量下在你的软件/服务上 使用Gravatar的受欢迎程度与用你自己的方案相比，用户到底是二者选一，或者两者兼有用之呢？

Gravatar现在已成为Automattic旗下的公司，通过WordPress.com 足以证明Automattic在可扩展性和服务器基础设施上的实力。bbPress、WordPress.com以及用户自己安装的WordPress版 本都支持Gravatar。到目前为止，我觉得Gravatar并没有取得理想中的效果， 这也是为什么我在此呼吁大家，要是那些你们喜欢的软件或服务还在使用他们自己独立的一套头像系统的话，联系它们的开发商，告诉他们你希望这些软件或服务能 支持Gravatar，至少给这些软件添加一个插件来增加这个功能就行了。

附原文：

Why Is Gravatar Still Not Mainstream?

Remember Gravatar? That service Automattic acquired back on October 18th, 2007. It’s nearing two years since the acquisition and I don’t know about you but, I don’t feel as though Gravatar has gone mainstream. Just as a refresher course, the idea behind Gravatar is to host a globally-recognized avatar that is tied to an email address. This means that using your Gravatar is as simple as using the same email address to sign up to supported services/software that you used on Gravatar.com.

Same Idea Exists Today From 2004

Doing a bit of history, Gravatar has been around since at least 2004. At least that is as far back as the Web Archive has records of it which makes it all the more surprising that more services and software do not support it out of the box. For example, Twitter, Facebook, phpBB, all have their own way of handling avatars. No support what so ever for the Gravatar service, even though there are numerous examples of how to implement it.

Could it be that we are really better off with each system managing avatars in their own way? Or is it the fact that most end users of various software and or services have not spoken loudly enough to have Gravatar support built in? My request is for software developers not to ditch their own avatar management solution, but to build Gravatar support in addition to. At least in this fashion, you could gauge how popular the use of Gravatar is to manage avatars on your software/service compared to your home grown solution opting to use one, the other, or both.

Gravatar is now hosted under the guide of Automattic, a company that has proven with WordPress.com that they know what they’re doing when it comes to scalability and server infrastructure. Users of bbPress, WordPress.com, and the self installed version of WordPress are spoiled to have Gravatar support built right into the software. To this day, I don’t think the Gravatar idea has come to fruition which is why I’m asking you to contact the developers of your favorite software or services which has its own version of avatar management and let them know you want Gravatar support to be built in. At the very least, a mod or plugin to add the functionality to the software should suffice.

If you participate in this event, be sure to let me know the response you receive in the comments below. Also feel free to link to plugins or mods that add Gravatar support to their respective pieces of software as it would be nice to have all of that information in one place.

本文转载自WordPress啦！