So what actually is a Avatar?
Let me try to explain…
An avatar is simply an image that has been created for use in places such as computer games, internet forums or other online communities and can be in the form of a three-dimensional image, two dimensional image and in some cases a reduced photo of yourself which you have uploaded to the internet.
It’s a sure bet that you have seen images like this before, beside comments on any blog that you have visited right…
An avatar to many is a way for online users to depict their online persona.
How Do You Make An Avatar
It is simple enough to do this online, you simply need to have a yahoo account then log-in and go to Yahoo Avatars there you will be able to create your very own character to use online from the avatar creation dashboard.
Avatars have become widely used across the internet today from forums, blogs to many of the social networking sites where you are able to display a picture of yourself or your avatar. As you can see in the dashboard there are many different ways for you to customize your avatar by simply selecting the options available to your under the tabs, which you can then preview in the preview window on the left hand side.
You Can Create Your Avatar In A Graphics Program
Or if you have a graphics program like Photoshop or Adobe Fireworks or even Gimp you can basically make the graphic yourself to upload onto the internet as your avatar, this is not to get confused with a favicon which is something entirely different again.
If you are a wordpress user then you would know the term already when we speak of an avatar. Especially if you have visited Gravatar.com, where you can simply enter your email address then upload your own custom made image which then becomes your online avatar.You can upload any size image from your own computer.
Gravatar will then automatically re-size any large images which you upload this helps to maintain the best quality image you have.
If you want to find where you can enable Avatars in your wordpress blog you just need to go to Settings–>Discussion and then scroll to the bottom of the page until you see the options for allowing Avatars to be displayed.
Once you are all setup up on Gravatar.com your chosen image will follow you from site to site appearing beside your name when ever you comment or post on any blog. If you are not sure how to set this up there are video tutorials to help you get started fast, so what are you waiting for go get your avatar and come back here to place a comment show you can show it off to the world.
Avatars can help to identify your comments on blogs as well as on forums and can also be uploaded and used on any social networking sites that you have joined.
Thank you for volunteering to write this post on short (actually NO) notice. Ron knew I was searching for a post that explained what an Avatar was so I could add a link that explained them in one of our FamousBloggers CommentLuv Cash Blogging Contest entry posts.
I have all kinds of links like that saved but recently lost my primary hard drive and am still hoping that the data can be recovered. That is a serious loss so Ron jumped right in and first helped me search and then wrote this post – taking time away from his work and livelihood to give to the blogging community. Ron is like that.
Ron’s Avatars are fancier than what I prefer to use, partly because I am not a gamer. Do me the best Avatars for branding when commenting in blogs and across Social Media are distinctive, unique and very recognizable even when very tiny (as they appear in many widgets online).
Although I have seen some full body style Avatars that work very well, most Avatars are square so a more square (rather than long or tall) image works best most of the time. See Ron’s Avatar for example or the simple but very visible design I use for GrowMap.
Looking for your Avatar among the tiny images at Twitter or in other widgets that use little images is a great way to evaluate how strong your Avatar design is. If yours stands out in the crowd you have a winner that will attract those who have positive associations with your online activities.
Often those are subsconsious – we don’t actively think I’ll remember that Avatar next time I see it – it is just familiar and when someone enjoys what you share that “brand image” gets filed as a postive memory and seeing the image again triggers interest, clicks and more visits for you.