Favicons have been around for years and almost every website uses them. Why? Because they are easy. Webmasters just upload the favicon.ico file to their root directory and anybody can use the image as they wish.
Avatars are a more complicated business. Some sites pull them from MyBlogLog or Gravatar and some make you upload your own. Blogicon is a new system whereby webmasters simply upload their avatar to their website in the same way as a favatar.
The benefit is that you don’t have to sign up with any third party systems to use Blogicon, just add the image to your site and carry on using the web as normal, other people do the rest.
Specifications
The Blogicon image is a gif file 80 pixels by 80 pixels and is stored at www.yourblog.com/blogicon.gif so that any applications can find it. Add your Blogicon to your website and it will show up whenever you comment on Blogstorm and other participating blogs.
Applications
Initially I’m using Blogicon to pull peoples avatars into their comments on BlogStorm but the potential applications are huge.
- Blog directories can pull avatars alongside listings
- RSS readers such as Netvibes or Google Reader could use the system
- Aggregators such as Techmeme might want to show blogicons next to stories
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Leeds based digital & SEO agency Branded3. Patrick also runs Blogstorm.You can get our blog posts delivered for free by email every day - simply add your email address to the box below or alternatively grab the RSS feed.
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Sounds like a winner! Can’t wait to explore it further and integrate it with all my blogs!
I’ve added a blogicon to my blog. Great idea.
I added mine too:)
Just added one myself.
Good idea!
Great idea.
just test it
Let me see how my Blogicon looks like
How will this affect the gravatar/mybloglog plugin we already use?
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Mike, at the moment this is an alternative solution for blog owners like me who didn’t want to sign up with gravatar/mybloglog. Hopefully I will be able to make a plugin that is compatible with both systems.
More comments from Patrick AltoftJust testing this out – I was not totally sure where to add the code in comments.php as I have threaded comments enabled which adds a lot of extra code to the file.
Is it based on website url or email address?
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It is based on website address.
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