Welcome to The Open Graph, a newsletter by Gravatar that’s all about helping you create better user experiences on the internet. You’ll also learn how Gravatar can be the foundation for making your users’ lives better on your application and across the whole web. Read on, and become part of our mission to create a more open, connected, and user-centric internet.

If you’re building with Postgres, you know the pain of juggling database queries and external API calls. Every profile enrichment means another HTTP request, another potential point of failure, another layer of complexity. What if you could query user profiles with the same SQL you use for everything else?

Today, we’re announcing our PostgreSQL Foreign Data Wrapper for Supabase — and it’s about to make your user data workflows much simpler.

What’s a Foreign Data Wrapper (and why should you care)?

Foreign Data Wrappers are Postgres’s superpower for treating external data like native tables. Instead of writing API integration code, you write SQL. Instead of managing HTTP connections, Postgres handles them. Instead of synchronizing data between systems, you query in real time.

Our new Gravatar FDW for Supabase lets you:

• Query Gravatar profiles using standard SQL joins
• Enrich user records without leaving your database
• Eliminate API boilerplate from your application code
• Let Postgres handle all the connection management

Why we built for Supabase

If you’re already using Supabase, you picked it for a reason. It’s Postgres without the BS – no proprietary extensions, no vendor lock-in, just the database you know and love with a developer experience that doesn’t suck.

Supabase has recently gained popularity, in part thanks to AI-powered tools like Lovable, v0, or Bolt.

Building our FDW for Supabase was a no-brainer:

Easy to set up: Docs available right in the Supabase Wrappers catalog. Enable the Gravatar FDW, add your optional API key through Vault, and done.

RLS just works: Your existing Row Level Security policies apply to Gravatar data too. Control who sees enriched profiles using the same patterns you already use.

Scales with you: Supabase handles millions of databases. Whether you’re a side project or a startup hitting scale, the infrastructure is already in place.

Three ways to use it right now

Better onboarding: New user signs up with just an email? Automatically retrieve their display name and avatar from Gravatar. Skip the profile setup forms entirely.

Context for support: Provide your support team with rich user profiles – including location, verified accounts, and professional information – directly within their existing dashboards. No more tab juggling.

Smarter analytics: Join Gravatar data with your metrics to understand who your users actually are, not just what they click on.

Get started in minutes

1. Install the Gravatar wrapper from your Supabase dashboard
2. Configure your API key 
3. Start querying gravatar.profiles

We’ve documented everything at github.com/gravatar/gravatar_fdw, including example queries and instructions for AI coding assistants.

Ready to treat user profiles like first-class database citizens?

Get the Gravatar FDW →

Don’t take our word for it — here’s an unsolicited post from the CEO of Supabase!

The Open Graph is published monthly by Gravatar. We’re building tools for a more open, connected web.

Welcome to The Open Graph, Gravatar’s newsletter for developers building better user experiences on the web. This month, we gave our team a challenge: take a day to build something fun, unique, and interesting using AI tools and Gravatar. The results? Three working apps that showcase how quickly you can ship personalized experiences.

Challenge accepted

We wanted to see what’s really possible when you combine modern AI development tools with Gravatar’s profile data. Our team grabbed their favorite AI assistants — Loveable, v0, Cursor, Claude — and started building. No lengthy planning sessions, no perfect architecture diagrams. Just ideas and rapid iteration.

The rules were simple:

• Use any AI tool to help build
• Integrate Gravatar meaningfully
• Ship something that works in about a day
• Have fun with it

Here’s what we built.

App #1: WiSH – Wishlists and gifts

The idea: A shopping assistant that helps you find gift ideas for friends.

How it works: Enter someone’s email, and WiSH uses their Gravatar profile and our inferred interests endpoint to suggest perfect gifts. Marketing manager who loves coffee and podcasts? Here’s a premium podcast mic and artisan coffee subscription. Developer into retro gaming? Check out this mechanical keyboard with 8-bit keycaps.

Built with: Cursor for the UI, OpenAI for the recommendation logic, hosted on Vercel

The magic moment: Watching the app nail gift suggestions based on real interests, not just generic “gifts for developers” lists.

Time to build: The UI and recommendation piece took less than a day. It did take us longer to sort out a quality set of products that gave us good results. We ended up creating a temporary database of products from public sites using WooCommerce. We could extend with Google and Amazon product APIs as well.

App #2: PodMatch – Podcast recommendations

The idea: A podcast discovery engine that goes beyond “you might also like.”

How it works: Connect with your email, and PodMatch uses our profile markdown file to analyzes your Gravatar profile – job title, interests, verified accounts – to surface podcasts you’ll love. Frontend developer interested in sustainability? Here’s that new green tech podcast. Product manager who follows space news? Queue up the latest from SpaceX insiders.

Built with: Loveable

The surprise: How accurately it predicted podcast preferences based on professional background + personal interests.

Time to build: Half a day — the hardest part was hooking up with Apple’s podcasts database.

App #3: EventSocial – Instant community

The idea: Create a better event RSVP and management tool so attendees no longer need to fill out endless profile fields.

How it works: Sign in with email, and boom – your profile is complete. Avatar, bio, interests, location (if shared) all populated from Gravatar. Learn about who’s attending events before you go. Find events based on what you’re actually interested in, not just broad categories.

Built with: Built the spec with Claude, v0 for the application

The game-changer: No profile setup fatigue or lost usernames and passwords. Users can join and RSVP to events with just an email address and all their details and social media accounts are displayed right from Gravatar, making communities more vibrant from the start. As a fun bonus, we added in QR code scanning for checking attendees in. Magic!

The next extension of this would be to use profile data to recommend events. It just keeps going!

Time to build: One full day.

What we learned

The main thing we learned was that each tool had its limits. We could tell that training data was outdated when it comes to Gravatar. For example, they all recommend and start building with MD5 hashing though we’ve long supported and encourage SHA256.

In fact, we took the prompts and information that we kept needing to feed to each tool to create our new one page AI instructions.

Speed matters: AI tools let us validate ideas in a day, not weeks. Some apps took just a few hours, others most of the day.

Profiles are powerful: Gravatar data instantly made each app feel personalized. No cold starts, no empty states.

Privacy first still works: Users control their data. Our apps only use what people choose to share publicly.

The tools are just tools: Whether it was Loveable, V0, Cursor, or Claude, the key was having clear ideas about how Gravatar could enhance the user experience.

Getting started is literally copy-paste

Want to try the challenge yourself? Here’s your starter kit:

1. Grab our AI instructions – Teaches any AI assistant how Gravatar works
2. Pick an AI tool you like – We used Loveable, v0, Cursor, and Claude
3. Check the API docs – For when you need the details
4. Block out a day – Or even just an afternoon
5. Pick an idea that excites you – The best apps solve problems you understand

Challenge yourself

We showed you what’s possible – now it’s your turn. Grab your favorite AI tool, integrate Gravatar, and build something interesting in a day. The most creative integration gets featured in next month’s newsletter (plus some exclusive Gravatar swag).

Some ideas to get you started:

• A conference app that shows attendee profiles instantly
• A dating app that matches based on real interests (not just swipes)
• A book club app that suggests reads based on member profiles

Share your creation: Tag us on Bluesky or X showing what you built!

P.S. The best part? You don’t need to be an AI or development expert. Just start with an idea, paste our instructions into your AI tool of choice, and start building. You might surprise yourself with what you can create in a day.

The Open Graph is published monthly by Gravatar. We’re building tools for a more open, connected web.

Welcome to The Open Graph, a newsletter by Gravatar that’s all about helping you create better user experiences on the internet.

Are you treating users like strangers?

Every time a new user hits your platform, they’re starting from scratch.

Mom opens your customer support chat: “My subscription charged twice this month.”

Your bot responds: “Hi! I’d be happy to help. To get started, could you provide your name and location so I can look up your account?”

She just wants her money back. Now she’s wondering why a chatbot needs to know where she lives before it can explain why she got charged twice.

This is the cold start problem. New users can’t just get help – they have to build their identity from zero first.

The real cost of AI amnesia

Here’s what’s happening behind the scenes:

Every new user interaction starts with an identity interrogation instead of solving their actual problem.

Your support chatbot (or human!) collects the same basic info over and over because it doesn’t know who’s talking to it.

You’re either building lengthy onboarding flows (users hate this) or accepting that your AI experiences will always feel impersonal.

The speed of AI development right now is wild. Just last week at Google I/O 2025, we saw announcements of Gemini 2.5, new agentic capabilities, and AI models that can process 480 trillion tokens monthly – that’s 50 times more than just a year ago. The entire industry is moving at breakneck speed.

What if users brought their context with them?

That’s exactly what our AI Profile Builder does.

Users create one structured profile on Gravatar – their basic info, communication preferences, and relevant background. Your AI gets instant context without awkward interrogations.

Instead of asking “What’s your name and location?” your support bot already knows it’s talking to Jennifer from Portland who prefers quick, direct answers.

Three key benefits for your platform:

• Skip the friction – Users bring their identity, you skip the awkward introductions
• No creepy profiling – Users control what you know, transparent and trustworthy
• Works everywhere – One API, consistent context across all platforms

Simple integration, rich context

Here’s the technical bit: https://gravatar.com/{EmailHash}.md

That’s it. One API call gives you structured user context that actually travels with them across the web.

javascript// Get user's AI profile
const profile = await fetch(`https://gravatar.com/${emailHash}.md`);
// Your AI now knows their basic info, preferences, background

No hidden behavioral tracking. No mysterious algorithmic profiling. Just transparent, user-controlled identity that makes your AI features actually useful.

Why this matters now

AI personalization is becoming table stakes. Users expect systems to understand them.

But here’s the thing – they also expect transparency about how systems understand them. The creepy black-box approach might work short-term, but it’s not sustainable.

Getting ahead of this trend positions your platform as privacy-forward and user-respecting. That’s going to matter more as AI becomes ubiquitous.

Ready to give your AI actual context?

Our AI Profile Builder API is live with REST endpoints and mobile SDKs. Whether you’re building chatbots, content recommendations, or AI workflows, user-controlled identity takes just a few lines of code.

Get your API key and ship better personalization in 10 minutes →

What’s your take?

AI is evolving faster than most of us predicted. We’re all figuring this out as we go.

How are you handling user identity in your AI features? What personalization challenges are you facing? Hit reply – we want to hear from you.

The Open Graph is published by the team at Gravatar. We’re building the infrastructure for user identity on the open web.

Welcome to The Open Graph, a newsletter by Gravatar that’s all about helping you create better user experiences on the internet. Read on, and become part of our mission to create a more open, connected, and user-centric internet.

Gravatar has long been the home for avatars on the web. That’s why industry leaders like Zapier and Fastmail simply add a link to Gravatar.com in their account settings, giving users a way to update their profile image once and have it reflect everywhere.

But there is an even better way: the Quick Editor.

With the Quick Editor, your users can quickly update their Gravatar without leaving your platform. 

After all, you got their attention.  You should keep it.

In this edition, we’ll explore exactly how it works.

Your digital face

For developers building digital products, avatar management might seem like a minor detail, but it significantly impacts user experience. When users need to upload, crop, and manage different avatars across dozens of services, it creates unnecessary friction.

This is where Gravatar’s globally recognized avatar service transforms the experience. By connecting avatars to email addresses, Gravatar enables a consistent visual identity that travels with users across the web. The technical simplicity belies its profound impact. One update at Gravatar.com cascades across thousands of integrated platforms.

They’re not just decorative pixels — avatars help form communities by making interactions feel more human and personal. In professional contexts, consistently presented avatars build recognizability and trust, especially when we increasingly interact with people that we may never meet in person.

What is the Quick Editor?

The Gravatar Quick Editor takes personalization to the next level by allowing users to edit their avatars and profiles directly within your site or app. This eliminates the need to send them to gravatar.com, keeping them engaged with your platform.

Key benefits:

• Takes minutes to implement
• Keeps users on your platform during avatar editing
• Provides a seamless, branded experience
• Automatically updates avatar elements on your page

Using is a breeze:

• Install with NPM or Yarn
• Use simplified GravatarQuickEditor class for rapid setup
• Use the more advanced GravatarQuickEditorCore for complete control

It is mobile, too

Our native SDKs for iOS and Android bring the Gravatar Quick Editor to mobile apps with minimal effort. Using platform-specific UI frameworks (Compose for Android, Swift UI for iOS), the Avatar Change Flow component lets users update their profiles without leaving your app.

Explore integration options at our Mobile SDK documentation.

Are you using the Quick Editor?

If you are integrating with Gravatar, you should use the Quick Editor.

Avatar management requires secure storage, CDN distribution, responsive sizing, caching mechanisms, and fallback systems—all solved problems in Gravatar’s ecosystem.

The humble avatar may be small in pixel dimensions, but its impact on user experience makes it worthy of thoughtful implementation.

Get started with the Quick Editor →

P.S. Working on an integration? Found a bug? Built something cool?
Let us know or discuss on Github.

Welcome to The Open Graph, a newsletter by Gravatar that’s all about helping you create better user experiences on the internet. You’ll also learn how Gravatar can be the foundation to making your users’ lives better on your application and across the whole web. Read on, and become part of our mission to create a more open, connected, and user-centric internet.

Digital identity and real-world networking have traditionally existed in separate spheres. At Gravatar, we’re changing that with our new free QR Code Badges feature – a powerful tool that transforms how your users connect at events while streamlining lead generation and user onboarding for your platforms.

How Gravatar QR Codes Work

The concept is elegantly simple: event badges with QR codes linked directly to attendees’ Gravatar profiles. Here’s the magic behind it:

1. Event organizers generate QR codes based on attendees’ email addresses (we make this easy!)
2. These codes are printed on event badges
3. When scanned, the QR code opens the person’s Gravatar profile
4. For emails without an existing Gravatar, the scan leads to a “Claim your Profile” page

No special apps needed – just the camera on any smartphone. 

Use Cases for Developers and Platform Owners

Lead Generation with Rich Context

For marketers and sales teams, each scan provides more than just an email address – it delivers a complete Gravatar profile with context about who your leads are. This rich data can be integrated directly into your CRM systems.

Workshop and Session Management

Running a multi-track conference? QR codes can manage workshop sign-ups, track attendance, and provide personalized experiences based on a user’s Gravatar profile data.

Community Building

For platforms focused on community, QR codes create seamless bridges between online forums and in-person meetups, strengthening the connection between digital and physical communities. And it is then easy to use Gravatar profiles for listing attendees and speakers.

Real-World Success: WordCamp Asia

We recently partnered with WordCamp Asia 2025 to implement Gravatar QR codes on all attendee badges, and the results were impressive. Sponsors particularly appreciated using the codes for lead capture, raffles, and follow-ups.

“Once people understood the feature, they loved it. Many were surprised to learn that Gravatar isn’t just for avatars—they didn’t know it could be used for networking and storing contact details.”

If you want to implement QR Code Badges at your next event, here are some key lessons we learnt along the way:

• Pre-event communication is crucial – make sure attendees know about the feature
• Train registration staff to introduce the QR code functionality
• Create clear signage explaining how to use the feature
• Encourage sponsors to incorporate QR scanning into their event strategy

Ready to Transform Your Next Event?

Our developer documentation has everything you need to implement Gravatar QR codes for your next event or platform. Whether you’re running a small meetup or a major conference, this free service can help you create more meaningful connections between attendees while streamlining your digital onboarding process.

Get Started with Gravatar QR Codes →

P.S. Using Gravatar QR codes at your event? We’d love to hear about it – reply to this email and share your experience!

Welcome to The Open Graph, a newsletter by Gravatar that’s all about helping you create better user experiences on the internet. You’ll also learn how Gravatar can be the foundation to making your users’ lives better on your application and across the whole web. Read on, and become part of our mission to create a more open, connected, and user-centric internet.

Avatars have come a long way since their early days, and Gravatar has too. While we’ve evolved massively over the years, building profile management features and a Profile API alongside our core avatar service, we recognize there’s still so much more to explore in the world of digital avatars. And this year, pushing the boundaries of how users represent themselves online is one of our core missions. Read on to find out how. 

The Avatar Journey

Back in 1979, the term “avatar” first showed up in a PLATO computer game simply called “Avatar.” By 1985, Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar had turned these digital representations into something more meaningful – they became how players expressed themselves in virtual worlds.

It’s pretty wild to think about how what started in gaming has shaped the way we present ourselves online today. That urge to customize and define our digital selves hasn’t gone away – if anything, it’s more important than ever as we bounce between different platforms and communities.

The Gravatar Story 

Tom Preston-Werner created Gravatar in 2004 as an innovative solution to a common internet problem: having to maintain separate avatars across different websites. The idea was brilliantly simple – one profile picture that follows you around the web, tied to your email address.

As Gravatar grew in popularity, reaching 115,000 users by 2007, Preston-Werner released Gravatar 2.0 with enhanced features like online image editing and multiple avatar support. The service’s potential to enhance user experience across the web caught the attention of Automattic. The acquisition in 2007 marked the beginning of a new era for both platforms – Gravatar became the default avatar service for WordPress, automatically displaying user avatars across millions of WordPress sites while maintaining its independence to serve the broader web.

As more platforms integrated Gravatar, we kept innovating. Our API made it dead simple for any website to plug into the Gravatar ecosystem. The Quick Editor followed, letting users update their Gravatar right from any integrated site. No more jumping between tabs or navigating to different settings pages.

Today, Gravatar has evolved into a cornerstone of online identity, serving billions of avatar requests daily across WordPress sites and major platforms like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and many others.

Quick nerdy fact about those default avatars you see – they’re unique identicons, like digital fingerprints. Each geometric pattern, monster, or pixel face is one-of-a-kind. Pretty neat, right?

What’s New? 

We’ve been busy:

Our mobile SDKs just got beefier – now supporting native experiences for avatar and profile management. Your users can update their digital identity right in your app, and developers get easier integration tools.

On the Avatar front, you can now generate custom initials-based avatars on the fly. You get full control over background and text colors, making it easy to match your platform’s design. It’s perfect for creating consistent, branded fallback avatars when users haven’t set a custom image.

On top of that, we’re exploring exploring some bigger ideas for the future of avatars:

• Video avatars powered by AI
• Clean, modern non-photo options
• Unique avatars per service
• Avatars without a Gravatar account (almost sounds like magic!)

Looking Forward 

As we keep growing, we’re pushing what avatars can be while keeping things simple and smooth for everyone. From AI features to new ways of showing up online, we’re excited to see where this goes – all while keeping our focus on helping users represent themselves across the web.

Want to get started? Jump into our developer docs to check out the latest features. Whether you’re building something new or spicing up an existing platform, we’ve got you covered.

P.S. Built something cool with Gravatar? Tell us about it – we love hearing what you’re up to!

Welcome to The Open Graph, a newsletter by Gravatar that’s all about helping you create better user experiences on the internet. You’ll also learn how Gravatar can be the foundation to making your users’ lives better on your application and across the whole web. Read on, and become part of our mission to create a more open, connected, and user-centric internet.

Twenty years ago, Gravatar started with a simple mission: helping people put a face to their name across the web. As we look ahead to 2025, we’re transforming from “that avatar service” into the web’s go-to profile platform. This evolution means exciting opportunities for developers and platform owners who integrate with Gravatar now.

Why 2025 Will Transform Digital Identity

The internet is changing rapidly. Centralized social networks are losing trust, AI systems need reliable ways to understand user context, and people want more control over their digital presence. For developers and platform owners, this creates both challenges and opportunities. How do you build trust? How do you streamline user onboarding? How do you create personalized experiences without getting bogged down in complex identity management?

This is where Gravatar’s 2025 roadmap comes in. We’re rolling out a comprehensive suite of features throughout the year that will transform how your users interact with your platform.

Transformative Tools for Developers

We’re rolling out a suite of new developer tools designed to make implementation easier and more powerful:

• Mobile SDKs are getting a major upgrade, allowing you to integrate not just avatar management, but complete profile editing capabilities into your mobile apps. This means your users can manage their entire digital identity right within your application.
• Our new playground and real-world code examples will make integration faster and more intuitive. We’re not just telling you how to implement Gravatar – we’re showing you how to build better user experiences with it.
• For those building community platforms, we’re introducing an email verification service that works like CAPTCHA but for emails, helping you maintain the quality of your user base without adding friction to the signup process.

Enhanced User Profiles, Better Platform Experience

While we’re expanding our developer tools, we’re also enhancing what users can do with their Gravatar profiles. This means more value for your platform:

• Advanced Avatar options: Beyond traditional photo avatars, we’re exploring new non-photo options (initials ftw!), better defaults, AI-powered video avatars, and perhaps 3D avatars. Your users get more ways to express themselves, and your platform gets richer, more engaging profiles automatically.
• Domain integration: Users will be able to bring their own domains to Gravatar, creating custom profile URLs that they can use across the web – including your platform. This means better personal branding options for your power users without any additional development work from you.
• RSS and content feeds: Profiles are becoming more dynamic with built-in content feeds. Imagine automatically having up-to-date user content on your platform without building complex content management systems.

Looking Ahead: The Decentralized Web

We’re also exploring decentralized options, including compatibility with the Fediverse and AT protocol. This means when you integrate Gravatar today, you’re not just getting current functionality – you’re future-proofing your platform for the evolving web.

Why This Matters for Your Platform

Every enhancement we make to Gravatar translates directly to better experiences on your platform:

• Faster user onboarding with pre-populated profiles
• Richer user interactions with enhanced avatar and profile options
• Reduced development time for identity management features
• Future-ready infrastructure that evolves with the web

Get Started Today

Ready to build better user experiences with Gravatar? Our developer documentation has everything you need to get started. Whether you’re building a new platform or enhancing an existing one, Gravatar’s expanding capabilities can help you create more engaging, user-friendly experiences with less development overhead.

P.S. Building something interesting with Gravatar? We’d love to hear about it – reply to this email and share your story!

Welcome to The Open Graph, a newsletter by Gravatar that’s all about helping you create better user experiences on the internet.

ICYMI: 2024 has been a banner year for Gravatar. Be sure to check out:

• New REST API with many new endpoints
• New iOS and Android SDKs
• New ‘Quick Editor’ library
• New Gravatar Enhanced plugin for WordPress
• Improved and updated hover cards

Watch this space for much more to come in 2025!

The mass exodus away from the social media platform formerly known as Twitter has sent a clear signal that there’s plenty of opportunity for newer social media platforms to come along and make their mark. Right now, Bluesky has filled an X-shaped void for many (and heads up – if you claim your free domain on Gravatar, you can connect your Bluesky account and use your domain as your Bluesky handle!). 

Here’s another idea, though – what if you were to build your own social platform? You don’t need to attract millions of users to be successful! The days of a few large social networks dominating the landscape are numbered. The future belongs to niche platforms that cater to specific interests and communities. Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or a visionary with a unique idea, building a social network is more accessible than ever.

Starting Right: Define Your Vision

Before diving into development, focus on what makes your platform unique. Identify a specific need, like connecting pet owners for playdates. Define your target audience – perhaps you’re focusing on exotic pet enthusiasts. Plan your unique features; maybe you want to implement AI-powered pet breed identification. Whatever your vision, make sure it addresses a genuine need in the market. You need to take inspiration from what has worked before, but not just replicate existing models. 

Smart Development Approaches That Work

When it comes to building your social network, you have several paths to choose from:

• No-code solutions offer a perfect starting point for MVPs and concept validation, letting you test your ideas quickly with lower initial costs. 
• Custom development gives you full control over features and better scalability, though it requires more resources. 
• Many successful platforms take a hybrid approach – starting with templates and gradually adding custom features as they grow. This flexibility lets you begin with a working product and evolve based on user feedback. Consider using microservices architecture to combine off-the-shelf solutions with custom-built features, giving you the best of both worlds.

The Gravatar Advantage

Integrating Gravatar into your social platform gives you an immediate head start on user management. Instead of building a complex profile system from scratch, you get instant user profile imports and consistent identity management across platforms. Our universal API integration means you can focus on building unique features while we handle the complexities of profile management. This significantly reduces development time and provides a seamless experience for users who already have Gravatar profiles. Plus, our built-in profile management system comes with security features and privacy controls that would take months to develop independently.

Essential Features to Include

Your social platform needs a solid foundation of core features to succeed:

• Start with robust authentication and security, including multiple login methods and two-factor authentication that comply with data protection standards. 
• User profiles should balance completeness with simplicity – collect essential information while giving users control over their privacy settings and verification options. 
• For content, ensure your platform supports various formats while maintaining strong moderation tools and mobile optimization. 
• Social interactions form the heart of your platform: implement intuitive friend/follow mechanisms, engaging reaction options, and flexible group features that foster community building. 

Remember, you can introduce advanced features gradually based on user feedback and platform growth.

Get Started with Gravatar

Ready to build your social network? Gravatar’s profile system can jumpstart your development by handling user identities and profiles out of the box. Check out our developer documentation for a quick implementation guide.

P.S. Have questions about how to integrate Gravatar into your social platform?
Reply to this email – we’d love to help!

Welcome to The Open Graph, a newsletter by Gravatar that’s all about helping you create better user experiences on the internet. You’ll also learn how Gravatar can be the foundation to making your users’ lives better on your application and across the whole web. Read on, and become part of our mission to create a more open, connected, and user-centric internet.

—

Today, let’s talk about user onboarding. Not the theoretical, picture-perfect kind you see in UX case studies, but the real, practical process of getting users to understand and embrace your product.

The Real Cost of Poor Onboarding

Here’s what we often see: developers spend months perfecting their product’s features, only to lose users in the first few minutes because of a clunky onboarding process. It’s like building a beautiful house but forgetting to put in a front door.

The truth is simple: the first few minutes of user interaction with your product can make or break their entire experience. No pressure, right?

Starting Right: The Sign-up Sweet Spot

The first rule of user onboarding? Don’t make users think more than they have to. Here’s what works:

1. Minimize Initial Friction
   • Ask only for essential information
   • Implement social logins strategically
   • Use progressive profiling (gather more data as users engage)
     
2. Smart Defaults Matter Consider this: every field you auto-fill is one less reason for users to abandon your signup flow.

Here’s where Gravatar comes in. When you integrate Gravatar, you’re not just adding avatars – you’re tapping into a pre-existing user profile system that can:

• Auto-populate user information
• Provide consistent identity across platforms
• Reduce signup friction significantly

Our new native integrations for the Gravatar mobile SDK make it even easier to integrate Gravatar into your app, giving you ready-to-use UI components and streamlined avatar management through the new Avatar Change Flow. Our Gravatar mobile SDK got called one of the best tools for iOS developers by iOS Dev Tools this month, and also got a shoutout in Android Weekly! How’s that for a ringing endorsement?

Beyond the Basics: Personalization That Works

The key to effective onboarding isn’t just about getting users in the door – it’s about showing them the right path once they’re inside. Here’s how:

1. Smart Segmentation
   • Use brief, focused microsurveys
   • Adapt the experience based on user goals
   • Show relevant features first
     
2. Progressive Discovery Instead of overwhelming users with features, guide them through progressive stages:
   • Essential features first
   • Advanced features as users grow
   • Contextual help when needed

Don’t overwhelm your users!

A common mistake in onboarding implementation is trying to show and explain everything at once. Instead of building an onboarding flow that dumps all features on your users immediately, structure it around their goals and progress. 

Think of it this way: rather than having steps like “show all features,” “explain everything,” and “hope users figure it out,” build your flow around “identify user goals”, “show relevant features,” and “celebrate their first successful action.” This goal-oriented approach keeps users engaged and helps them find value faster.

A couple of examples

1. On Gravatar we just rolled out a new guided onboarding which only includes the four features and areas that we know encourage users to come back in the future and share their profiles publicly. It was tempting (and hard) not to include more!
2. Our favorite podcasts app, Pocket Casts, is working on providing better podcast recommendations to users. We’re helping them use our free and open APIs so that the millions of users who have provided interests to Gravatar can have their interests pre-loaded in Pocket Casts. Resulting in a much faster and tailored onboarding experience.

Measuring What Matters

The difference between good and great onboarding often comes down to what you measure and how you act on those measurements. While it’s tempting to track everything, focus on these key metrics that directly impact user success:

• Time to first value (TTFV): How quickly users experience your product’s core benefit. The shorter this time, the more likely users are to stick around. Industry leaders aim for TTFV within the first 1-2 minutes of signup.
• Completion rate of key actions: What percentage of users complete crucial setup steps? This tells you if your onboarding is actually guiding users toward success or losing them along the way.
• Drop-off points: Where exactly do users abandon your onboarding? These points of friction are your biggest opportunities for improvement and should guide your optimization efforts.
• User activation rate: The percentage of users who become truly engaged with your product after onboarding. This is your north star metric – it tells you if your onboarding is actually creating active users or just completing a process.

Quick Implementation Checklist

✓ Minimize form fields
✓ Implement social/Gravatar authentication
✓ Create clear success metrics
✓ Design guided first-time user actions
✓ Set up analytics tracking

Get Started with Gravatar 

Using Gravatar as your website or application’s profile system is a gamechanger for onboarding – it saves your users time at the profile creation stage, and gives you access to more immediate data that lets you segment your audiences and create personalized onboarding experiences for each user group. Check out our developer documentation for a quick implementation guide.

P.S. Have questions about implementing better user onboarding?
Reply to this email – we’d love to help!

Learn more about the REST API, view detailed documentation, and get your free API Key.

We’ve also put together this tutorial on how to integrate the API into your app or website.

Look for more fields to be added to the API soon, and join our Github discussions to ask questions, give feedback, or share with us what you build.