Cocktail Party Geek: The Avatar, the gravatar and the buddy icon
What follows is more of an opinion piece than a useful cocktail party geek – sorry. Â It was late.
An avatar? Â A gravatar? Â A buddy icon? Â Perhaps
you’ve heard these terms before? Â I could quote Wikipedia about 2d representations of online personality yada yada but I have a word for you – panache! Â Your avatar/gravatar/buddy icon says something about you and the effort you make to converse with others on this wide web of ours.
Take Gmail as an example: Â Did you know you can change your buddy icon on Google to show up whenever someone puts their mouse on your name? Â Do you know how many people still have that silly asexual silhouette? Â Your picture is like a firm but not overbearing handshake – it matters.
Want more examples?
- Your username for chat clients like AOL instant messenger, MSN, Skype, and ICQ has a buddy icon.
- Your profile on comments on blogs like wordpress or blogger probably has an avatar.
- Your resume on LinkedIn, Doostang, or even Monster.com can have a picture too!
Why include a picture? Â Well why not!?! Â What could be bad about having the confidence to include a good portrait of yourself on your resume? Â Or to confidently declare something about your commenting persona on a blog? Â These things make people remember you and frankly, there is too much information out there – you need to play all the hands you have. Â Not having a picture probably says more about your presence (or lack thereof) than having one.
You may even decide to standardize your pictures across several services… Â For example, my work picture is same everywhere. Â However, for my personal sites, I often put something a bit more … me. Â I think part of the fun is choosing who is going to see what side of your personality.
That said, you don’t want to be caught with your trousers down – keep the pictures appropriate to the audience and if you have any doubt, just don’t do it. Â Your mother is going to see your Gmail picture. Â Your colleagues might need to contact you on Skype, so that buddy icon from Vegas is … in poor taste. Â Choose wisely and don’t switch compulsively – that can be almost as annoying as the silhouette.
Here are some guides to setting your images for Gmail/Google, Skype, AOL Instant Messenger, MSN, Facebook. Â It’s an easy google search for other services. Â Don’t forget that it could be called an avatar, a gravatar, a buddy icon or something lame like a “picture”.
Express yourselves my friends. Â This is your open forum.
~ab
PS Yes this was just an excuse to post my MadMenYourself.com picture…