Federated, open source alternative: https://www.libravatar.org/

We tried using this a few months ago. Its a nice way to be able to setup a profile picture system quickly. The big problem with it though, and why we no longer use it, is that there is no way to use your own default image when a user hasn't logged in via a social network. The default image they force on you is horrific.

And the advantage of this over gravatar is? The page mentions how to move from gravatar, but gives no reason why I should. Maybe a better API? As a user I don't care.

Gravatar now requires a Wordpress account for new users, which is an annoying extra step to ask users to do.

Wow I didn't know that. That is absolutely reason enough that gravitar should be replaced (from both end user and app perspective).

I agree, It's annoying taking the extra sign up process just to get Gravatar they need to fix that.

Absolutely agree - that Gravatar now requires a Wordpress account is a really shame. avatar.io should be capitalising on this, focusing on why a user would want use their service, not just developers.

I think it lets you integrate the avatar upload process into your own UI.

I think this is great, and I'd use it. The marketing material needs some work though, took me a minute to understand what you were offering. Part of it is that I don't think Avatar is a widely known term for what many call a "Profile Picture". On XBox my avatar is a full 3D representation of a person, for example.

Somehow make it clear that is is a crazy-fast way to get user pictures on your site from a variety of sources.

Forum software has been using the term "avatar" this way for at least the past decade.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it's widely known enough to use in marketing.

I associate it with a 3D player model like in Second Life, not 2D photos in large social networks since they mostly don't use the term.

Gravatar has been able to pull it off.

Agreed, "avatar" means 3d.

The page doesn't explain at all why I should care, especially when compared to gravatar, or a client side library that uses multiple sources.

Would really like to see some service that intelligently tries to pick an avatar based on Gravatar, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. if you just give it an email address.

Does this fallback to gravatar? I'd be interested in a service that does something similar to Rapportive and just gives me a picture for an email from any source. Only a quarter of users have avatars [1] but when you add in linkedin, facebook &c that gets much higher.

[1] http://euri.ca/2013/how-many-people-use-gravatar/index.html

This is an edge-case, but it makes me sad to see they don't disambiguate between numeric usernames and ID's on twitter. For example, http://twitter.com/12345678 has a user ID of 9423832. I'm not sure if twitter still allows all-numeric handles or not, but I know there are active accounts that are confusing like this.

I think? I like what you're trying to do here, but it's really unclear what you're offering.

If this is a way to pull profile pics from service, I tested twitter and facebook for my own account: no dice.

I'll check back again in a few days. Normally, I see awesome things come out of the Chute team.

I liked http://pavatar.com/ more

The three badges (tweet bird, email and cloud) on the front page change color on hover, but are not clickable.

The page has a bunch of other usability/UI issues.

I also don't know what an avatar is in this context. Consider adding a more clear value proposition with an explanatory message.

This is so true. I was wondering if the service makes avatars for you (if so, what do they look like?), stores them for you (if so, how many at what cost?), or if it sorts them for you, finds them for you, etc.

Tried emailing at hello@getchute.com, and it was denied by Google's mail servers. May want to check into that.

This is really good. I'm sick of Photoshopping avatars, using Gravatar or finding an image elsewhere. This is going into the bookmarks for sure.

Well it looks like someone is using express and didnt feel like changing the favicon.

I could definitely use this, very neat.

The twitter social avatar doesnt work.

this

This: "Every app needs avatars, we make it hassle-free"

doesn't actually explain why every app needs avatars, and or why I should use their service (hassle free isn't much of an argument these days, it's proclaimed everywhere). Saying it, doesn't make it so. Why does every app need avatars? Since when is it hard to host my own avatars? What's the overwhelming value proposition, such that I'm going to hand over a piece of my app?

Where's the sign-up button? The contact info? How much does it cost? Nowhere in top half of the site does it say anything about whether it's free or costs $x, you have to scroll to the very bottom to see that (no short-cut link to it either).

The site is seemingly designed backwards to how you would actually want to design a web service site.

Looks awesome!