Remote Sensing Tools

The term Avatar is generally synonymous with the metaverse — but in social-networking circles, the term Gravatar has become a widely adopted term. These are the little 75 or 80 pixel square icons that users add to their profiles, or share attached with accounts and services — to display globally in forums, blogs, news sites, and in some businesses. It adds a more personalized method of communicating, placing a face or personality on the transaction. The term Gravatar stands for Globally Recognized Avatar.

Anonymity is often one of the most annoying issues in communications via the Internet, causing people to make attempts to find ways to ‘re-socialize’ the Web with varying visual methods. We see this more and more in cell-phones and other mobile units — used as indicators and visual queues as to who’s calling, though the pictures aren’t truly Gravatar based as much as they’re assigned by the user who owns the phone. This could actually be altered if a service existed for mobile users, where Gravatar support would display the caller’s picture instead of an assigned picture.

I noticed that Google Maps is now integrated with the option for users to include a picture for display in their profile. Very basically, it’s similar or same in concept to the Gravatar, and effectively establishes a more personalized representation of the author. Then again, you can be like me and place a slightly more obscure picture of yourself — as demonstrated in my Maps profile below. (For some reason, I usually use the most unbecoming picture of myself — in the midst of growing a beard and sleep deprived from working on a project.)

How does this all tie-in to the social structure of the Web? It’s rather simple, actually. The best example, is Automattic’s acquisition of Gravatar — a service centered on providing account housing and support for user Gravatars. Matthew Mullenweg has already integrated Gravatar in his own install of WordPress, demonstrating this visual sharing capability in the blogging and social networking space.

Now, note that once you create a profile in Google Maps, it’ll also be applied across all Google services — including iGoogle, Gmail, Google Chat, Blogger, and more. This is why I state that the concept is similar or same to Gravatar in the context of providing global service and support for a Globally Recognized Avatar provision. Now, place this all into the context I mentioned above in the mobile sector — and the reports of Google producing its own mobile phone, or that Apple’s iPhone is another default mobile platform for integration with Google services. (Google ‘gets it’, in other words.)

While I’ve read many others scoff at the idea behind this kind of social linking — one must realize that this has been a seriously debated issue in design circles for several years — and that there are a vast number of uses. It’s just now that we’re seeing techniques that have evolved finally come to some sense of convergence and timing to push the concept on a global scale. I think it’s a highly significant thing to observe at this time, and shouldn’t really be criticized. In the sense of the Internet’s historical development, historians will probably look back and see this point in time as a thing of note — as one must realize that we’re still very much in the Internet’s infancy in the present.