Automattic Acquires Gravatar
The best ideas are often the simplest. (At least in hindsight.) The idea of globally-recognized avatar, or Gravatar, struck me from the first time I heard it. Of course I should be able to have my avatar wherever I go! Of course email is a great way to key it!
Context & Ripple Effects
Automattic has bought Gravatar, the service that keys a single globally recognized avatar to a user's email address so the same image follows them across any site that supports it. The deal landed the same day it was announced, and GigaOM picked it up under the framing 'Startups Should Team Up to Grow' — reading the acquisition less as an exit than as a small utility finding a distribution partner.
First-order effects
- Gravatar's email-keyed avatar service now has Automattic's backing and reach, turning a standalone novelty into infrastructure that a major blog-platform company has an incentive to spread across its own properties.
Second-order effects
- Other blogging platforms and comment systems face pressure to support Gravatar's API rather than build proprietary avatar stores, since users increasingly expect one image to follow their email address everywhere they comment.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, small identity-portability utilities get absorbed by platform companies that can distribute them at scale — email address as universal identity key becoming shared infrastructure rather than a per-site feature.
The trend: Platform companies are acquiring small identity-portability services so user profiles and avatars travel across sites instead of being rebuilt per property.