Liven Up Your Wordpress Blog Comments With MyAvatars

In my last article, I talked about how you can use NicEdit to add RichText WYSIWYG functionality to your blog comments. Well today I want to talk about a Wordpress plugin that I found which adds a bit of extra personalization when someone leaves a comment on one of your posts. It is called MyAvatars.

MyAvatars was designed by an Italian developer and works using Yahoo-owned MyBlogLog. It simply shows the blog commenter’s MyBlogLog (MBL) avatar next to their comment.

It is simple to install on your Wordpress blog and by displaying the person’s MBL avatar next to their comment, it instantly livens up the page and puts a face to the words. It kind of creates an intimate friendly community and takes away the anonymity that normally surrounds blog commenting.

If the commenter doesn’t have a MBL account then they show up as a shadow figure. But I have noticed that this is becoming rarer these days as most people who regularly visit blogs tend to have MBL accounts as they want to become part of the community and interact with the other visitors. But on the off-chance that you get someone not registered with MBL then they will show up as Shadowman (or ShadowWoman!).

But for those registered with MBL, leaving a comment brings up their MBL logo :

I have heard complaints that this plug-in slows down the loading of the blog but personally I have not seen any slowing down of my blog at all. The only time you are likely to see a slow-down is when MyBlogLog is down and since they are hosted on Yahoo servers, that isn’t very likely. When was the last time a Yahoo server went down? Right, I can’t remember either.

If you use this plug-in, you’ll quickly find that people love seeing their avatars featured on their comments. Some have actually told me by email that seeing their shadow avatars next to their comments have actually prompted them to go to MyBlogLog and sign up for an account! This just goes to show that people (despite what they may say to the contrary) love attention, they love seeing their face or their avatar associated with their words and their opinions - and this means repeat visits to your blog!

And if you don’t have a MyBlogLog account, then you need to get one today and upload an avatar. You can open MyBlogLog account and join MakeUseOf community here. It’s free and essential if you are a blogger or visit a lot of blogs. MyBlogLog is the social network for bloggers everywhere.

(By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger, professional freelance writer and the editor of Make Use Of. Check out his personal blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

Filed Under: Cool Websites
Tags: avatar, blogging tools, mybloglog, wordpress, wordpress plugins, Yahoo