ScratchMonkey

This seems like a pretty cool idea:

http://en.gravatar.com/

You upload your avatars to a central website and reference them from all the other sites that use avatars. The lookup is done by email address, but the email address doesn't appear on a web page, so you don't have to worry about it being used by spam harvesters. (Instead, a hash of the address is used.)

The site is now operated by the same people who run WordPress, the blog site.

Check out the Gravatar blog for some interesting developments and applications:

http://blog.gravatar.com/

For example, if you read email with Thunderbird, you can install a plugin called MessageFaces that lets you see the sender's Gravatar above his message. (This is similar to X-Face in usenet news.)

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