Comments are an integral part of having a blog, and they are essentially what help make blogging a form of social media—by facilitating conversation back and forth between a blog’s author and their readers.

If you are not familiar with what a Gravatar is, maybe this will help—have you ever left a comment on a blog and next to your comment you notice a box has appeared with a grayed-out silhouette of a person?  Sadly, that means it is a Gravatar-enabled blog, and you, my friend are sans Gravatar. 🙁

What’s a Gravatar?  It’s a small photo that accompanies your comments or posts on blogs around the web.  It allows millions of blogs, sites and forums to grab an avatar for the person who is commenting, without them having to upload their pic every single time.  (It uses the emails of people who comment on your blog to display their Gravatar.) Plus, it’s just nice to relate to someone’s face rather than a mysterious and anonymous gray guy (or gal).

So don’t be shy, let us see your face when you come by to comment.  You can get your own Gravatar here.

Oh, and if you use WordPress and want to enable your own blog to show others’ Gravatars, here’s a link to a plugin for that.