This tutorial is continued with full written instructions at
http://WordpressVideos.TV
In this video, let's talk about how to use gravatars. Now if you have been blogging for a while and especially if you have left comments on someone else's blog, then you would notice that the comment usually has the image of the commenter associated with them; for example, as you can see here, some of the commenters actually have an image (that) automatically appears for every comment that they leave on other blogs, whereas for some other commenters, you would see a general-looking blank image here.
Now, these images are what they call gravatars or globally recognized avatars. And avatar, of course, is a popular term from forums and from games, which means a profile picture, if you wanna put it that way; but generally, by getting a gravatar, you standardize the image of you that appears across any blogs that you leave comments on.
To get a gravatar itself, you just need to go to Gravatar.com and right up here, click on Sign Up. And then you'll be asked for your primary email address. Now, it's important to remember that whenever you leave comments on other blogs, in order for your gravatar to show, you need to use the exact same email address every single time. However, another easier way to get a gravatar is actually to go to WordPress.com and click on Sign Up Now or you can click on the signup link above to get yourself a WordPress.com account. This is very useful because by creating a WordPress.com account, you'll be able to get a free blog at WordPress.com, and you'll also be able to get your WordPress API key, which you'll probably need to use in your Akismet spam plugin and in other applications as well.
