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WordPress Plugin: Official Gravatar Plugin

By Kyle Eslick | Filed Under Web Based Apps

If you’ve been following this site for a bit, you know that I’m a big fan of Gravatar, which is a Globally Recognized Avatar. Simply upload a picture that you want to use to represent yourself online.

If you run a WordPress blog, a great tool for building communities is the Gravatar plugin. There are actually 3-4 of them out there, but they all seem to have quit working while Gravatar was temporarily down for a few months. Now that its back up and running, you can once again access the official Gravatar plugin created by Tom Werner, the creater of Gravatar. In Tom’s most recent blog post, he mentions they are working on a new version of this popular plugin, which will hopefully have increased functionality. The other ones created by third parties don’t seem to work yet.

If you have an existing Gravatar account, when you check out the comments on this blog, you should see a picture next to your comment. This will help others find recognize comments from individual users. To get a Gravatar, simply go to their site, enter your E-mail address, then upload your picture. It couldn’t be any easier!

Once you’ve got your Gravatar account created, comment below to see it in action!!

Update: In reviewing the blog posts notes, it can take a few hours to show up, and some people have stated their Gravatar still isn’t working properly. I’m waiting to hear back from Tom Werner regarding this.

[Download the WordPress Gravatar plugin (WordPress 1.2 or later required)]

Update:  Due to Gravatar’s problems, I have since upgraded to the MyAvatars plugin on this site.  If you want your avatar to show up, you will need to sign up for a MyBlogLog account and upload your picture there.   Thanks!

  • http://www.quartzmtn.com Kevin

    Did you consider the MyAvatars plugin as an alternative? It does the same thing, but with MyBlogLog avatars. And if the user isn’t an MBL member, you can set it to check for a Gravatar as well.

  • http://www.quartzmtn.com/weblog Kevin

    Something strange is happening with your “subscribe to comments” plugin. After commenting on this post, I received a new comment notification for a comment on your “Best Firefox Plugins” post (which I didn’t comment on).

    I tried to click on “manage your subcriptions”, but after entering my email I get a PHP error message (Fatal error: Call to undefined function is_do_not_mail() in /home/admin/public_html/wp-subscription-manager.php on line 50).

    No big deal, just thought you’d want to know.

  • Cloporto

    Hi, I m just trying this service to know if it s working

  • http://www.kylescove.com Kyle Eslick

    Kevin -

    Thanks for the heads up. I don’t have access to my FTP server at the moment, but will look it over tonight to make sure everything is working correctly.

    I have given it some consideration, but haven’t taken the time to test it out yet as its still in a very early version. With the increased popularity of MyBlogLog, I think that it will definitely be a popular plugin over time if it works well.

    Cloporto – If you just registered for Gravatar, it might take a few hours for your Gravatar to go live. I would recommend checking back after 24 hours. :)

  • http://zenpax.com/ Kip

    Hey Kyle. I’m the current author/owner of the Gravatars2 WordPress plugin. The Gravatar.com 2.0 service is still using the same syntax to retrieve images, so the Gravatars2 WP plugin still works. The biggest benefit of this plugin is caching — even if (when) gravatar.com goes down or becomes very slow due to load, you can still quickly serve up the gravatar images from your cache. As people are discovering, the new gravatar.com service is still a bit unstable right now — hopefully Tom gets that fixed soon.

  • http://www.kylescove.com Kyle Eslick

    Kip,

    Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment!

    I had that extension installed, but after reviewing your site, it looks like I didn’t finish getting it set up correctly to see if it worked. I will be testing it out sometime this week.

    Have you considered integrating MyBlogLog into the plugin? With its popularity, that would be really neat, similar to the MyAvatars one posted above in the comments.

    Thanks for reading!

  • http://blogtheinternet.com/ Garry Conn

    I am not sure why, but my gravatar isn’t working yet…

  • Leopold

    Tom Werner has been MIA since he “launched” the much touted Gravatar 2.0 on February 15. Read the blog comments and you’ll see the problems that exist with 2.0, and the fact that Werner is nowhere to be seen.

    It’s amazing how irresponsible this guy is. He launches the “new” service, problems immediately arise, and he just runs away from it. Why Werner doesn’t just give this project up to someone capable of managing it is beyond me.

  • http://www.kylescove.com Kyle Eslick

    Leopold,

    Since writing this post, I’ve started to feel similar to you regarding Gravatar. I’ve sent two E-mails that went without a response and left a few comments. I didn’t see anyone else’s comments get responses either.

    I really believe in the idea of Gravatar, so I’ve done my best to actively promote it, but I’ve lost a lot of respect for Tom Werner and the way he has handled this issue.

    Hopefully the fix gets in place soon. MyBlogLog is missing out on a tremendous opportunity here, but they’ve had some of their own problems lately. ;)

    Thanks for the post!

  • http://blogtheinternet.com/ Garry Conn

    Hmm… so why do some work and mine doesn’t?

    And yes… MyBlogLog could really jump all over this. And yes, they have their issues as well… But, at least they have a public blog, and at least Eric and Rafer is communicating to us and telling everyone that they are aware of the problems and here is what they are doing to correct them.

    I think the Gravatar program is really cool… I would like to see it up and running, and maybe if Tom and his staff can’t run it, they can sell it to someone who can??? I guess time will only tell, and in the mean time, Kyle it looks like your traffic is up… and I would hate to drive traffic away once my picture appears! LOL!!

  • http://www.kylescove.com Kyle Eslick

    Garry,

    The reason some work (and the reason I thought everything was fine) is because those that had a Gravatar prior to their temporary shutdown half a year ago have a working Gravatar. Its the people that have signed up since they made the switch that are having the problems, through no fault of their own.

    MyBlogLog is working to correct their problems. Hopefully the resources they now have access to via Yahoo will help out with that.

    The concept of Gravatar is great. The execution hasn’t been since 2.0 came around, which is the problem. Being available to your customers is a key function to today’s business, and Tom Werner or anyone representing Gravatar has not been available to users.

    And thanks for noticing!. Traffic has been up the past two weeks! (about 1,200 hits and 2,500 views a day on average)

  • Leopold

    What I find bizarre about this whole thing is Werner’s complete absence since the 15th when he launched 2.0. There was all this anticipation and excitement prior to the launch, Werner kept promising how great this would be, how much improved 2.0 would be over the previous version, and after nearly four months of waiting, he flips on the switch (as someone else put it) and then disappears. I’ve never seen anything like it. Talk about weird…

  • http://blogtheinternet.com/ Garry Conn

    I don’t know… maybe someone should digg this article… it seems to be drawing in a lot of Gravatar Rants! LOL!!! Might make front page! :)

  • http://www.dialogcrm.com/blog/ Jason

    Just want to see if my gravatar is working yet?

  • http://gconn77.com Gconn77

    Kyle,

    I was catching up on JohnTP’s site today and check out his latest post… the MyBlogLog plug in is so much better than Gravatar… I would look into this!

    Here is the link:

    Talk to you soon,
    Garry

  • http://etsynews.com Serena

    Test ;)

  • http://etsynews.com Serena

    This one usually works. So sorry to test on your blog!

  • http://www.kylescove.com Kyle Eslick

    Serena,

    This post was a few months old. Along with most of the other blogs around the blogosphere, I have since switched to MyBlogLog avatars (which most people seem to prefer). Simply visit MyBlogLog and sign up for an account and load your avatar there!

  • therasan

    Just checking if it works.
    Just cant fix it on my site…

  • http://www.kylescove.com Kyle Eslick

    Therasan,

    I have upgraded this page to the MyAvatars plugin (replacing the Gravatar plugin) since this post was published.

    You can now view your picture you add to your MyBlogLog account.

  • http://www.fotocomedia.com Geeko

    working or not?

  • http://www.kylescove.com Kyle Eslick

    Geeko – This post was done back when I was using the Gravatar plugin. I have since upgraded to the MyAvatars plugin.

    If you look in the updated section of the post, you can see additional information.

  • Melanie West

    I am looking for answers to why my gravatar is not working so I landed in this post. Let’s see if this is working here…

  • http://orbedelastormentas.amrys.net Norda

    The same that the comment abow mine. I changed my gravatar a week ago, deleted the old, and the old is still being showed.

  • James Spratt

    Trying to get gravatar working on my site want to see whether my gravatar would work here…

  • http://www.kylescove.com Kyle Eslick

    I’m currently using the MyAvatars plugin, but if you don’t have a MyBlogLog avatar, then it will use your Gravatar icon automatically.

    It looks like each of you have an avatar showing up!

  • http://www.hoodgrownonline.com Hoodgrown_Magazine

    just testing

  • Pingback: Best of: WordPress Plugins

  • http://blog.jus1kiss.com s

    just trying to resolve a problem with my gravatar.
    hope it shows here… lol thnx for the testing ground (i can already see it in the preview bellow, but am going to hit submit anyhow)

    what i am doing is trying to add it outside the comments, for the author info next to each post… anyone has an idea if this CAN be done at all?

    thank you and have fun

  • http://blog.jus1kiss.com s

    i am using this at the moment


    $user_info = get_userdata(999);
    $usrE = $user_info->user_email;

    instead i would like this

    $user_info = get_userdata(the_author_ID());
    $usrE = $user_info->user_email;

    is there a way to get the_author_ID to give the value instead of printing it out?? easy. don’t want to go change the core files and add a new function…

    anyhow… then i simply display the gravatar with

    <img src="http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=<?php echo md5($usrE) ?>" alt="" />

  • http://blog.jus1kiss.com s

    lol solved it with

    get_the_author_id()
    in the author_template.php file

    sorry for the tripple post but it may add value to this blog for others figuring this out maybe :P

  • heathenx

    just testing my gravatar. sorry. having a hard time setting mine up.

  • http://www.webmatters.co.nz Michelle Sullivan

    Also testing my Gravatar :)

  • http://www.justinrains.com/ Justin

    I’m trying to figure out how to implement the code in my theme.

  • http://www.masey.com.au Masey

    Thanks for the link – much appreciated! ;)

  • http://bourgy.com steupz

    can’t get my gravatars to show at all using wp 2.5

  • Jai

    Me too testing :-)

  • pablo

    thanks !!

  • Joanna

    Does Gravator have an affilitate program?

    • http://slickaffiliate.com Kyle Eslick

      No, Gravatar does not have an affiliate program.

  • http://akriti91.wordpress.com Akriti

    My gravatar image isn’t showing up if I comment on other blogs. It only appears on my blog.

  • Maria

    Testing Gravatar

  • Adam

    Hiya guys,

    I ve tried logging into Gravatar to set up an account but it wont let me. I use a unused username and use a password and it keeps directing me to the sign in page. My account was never saved. I have to keep doing it over and over again. Still no luck.

    Do you have any advise?

  • http://www.natureswaynaturally.com Andrea

    Just set up with Gravatar and taking the liberty of using your blog to test whether it’s working :)

  • http://twitter.com/inmylife99 Cindy C (@inmylife99)

    So excited to see that my recently uploaded Gravatar seems to be working…

  • http://gravatar.com/maryannabrown Mary Anna Brown

    testing

  • http://www.insideballet.com Tammy Rhoades

    Testing mine too

  • http://html5.lewelsch.ch lewelsch

    Test 1 2 / 1 2 : Everything seems to be Fine ;-) Greetings from Switzerland