4 ms·

Tim, I think we agree that this is a challenge, especially as you want to add more diversity to the methods you support. A service like avatars.io does really

Tim, I think we agree that this is a challenge, especially as you want to add more diversity to the methods you support. A service like avatars.io does really well before you've invested any effort into solving your own Avatar support. We'll continue to add a number of other features and make the service more functional for even more diverse needs. As for trusting us now or later, I agree that's the risk that is there for all of us as we evaluate any potential new service. That's not something we expect anyone to do without great consideration and only time delivering a great solution can win that kind of confidence. Re: gravatar being enough. I agree that it is not the most widely used service and ideally we'd love to see our users having the option to customize their experience per app - as opposed to universally. We started with uploads since our platform manages that handily and many developers who approached us initially were seeking to use Chute specifically for their site's avatars. Thanks for your thoughts, and I welcome any feedback you have that can help make the service better.

timjahn 14y ago
An example of how I still have to do the work is Facebook. In your example, you need the Facebook ID to get the avatar. You can do that already using a simple URL from Facebook, just plugging in the ID in the appropriate spot (which is how I'm doing it now). To get the ID, you need the user to "login using Facebook" via OAuth, etc. Using your service, I still need to do that (like I'm already doing now). That's what I mean by it's the same amount of work. (Correct me if I'm wrong about the Facebook part with your service.)
- gregarious 14y ago
  Yes, you are right that you need to get a user to identify themselves on a service. Auth is definitely the most common methods, but for many services you can simply as for a username (ex. twitter or instagram). We definitely recognize that there's a lot of permutations in terms of how to make this as usable as possible and we'll continue to add more support for those other options. We started here so that it would be possible for apps with existing authentications to easily work with the service but also be able to expand to other services as well as uploads - as they felt appropriate for their own users. It's definitely not a solution for everyone. Also, we actually provide auth services for Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Instagram, and more. If you take a look at the mobile components, you'll see that we actually are handling the authentication there to capture the appropriate credentials and map it to the avatar. We'll be brining these to the web side very soon - we already do it with our other product, SlideChute.com. Thanks for the input... and I definitely think I understand your concerns.

timjahn 14y ago

An example of how I still have to do the work is Facebook. In your example, you need the Facebook ID to get the avatar. You can do that already using a simple URL from Facebook, just plugging in the ID in the appropriate spot (which is how I'm doing it now). To get the ID, you need the user to "login using Facebook" via OAuth, etc. Using your service, I still need to do that (like I'm already doing now). That's what I mean by it's the same amount of work. (Correct me if I'm wrong about the Facebook part with your service.)

gregarious 14y ago
Yes, you are right that you need to get a user to identify themselves on a service. Auth is definitely the most common methods, but for many services you can simply as for a username (ex. twitter or instagram). We definitely recognize that there's a lot of permutations in terms of how to make this as usable as possible and we'll continue to add more support for those other options. We started here so that it would be possible for apps with existing authentications to easily work with the service but also be able to expand to other services as well as uploads - as they felt appropriate for their own users. It's definitely not a solution for everyone. Also, we actually provide auth services for Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Instagram, and more. If you take a look at the mobile components, you'll see that we actually are handling the authentication there to capture the appropriate credentials and map it to the avatar. We'll be brining these to the web side very soon - we already do it with our other product, SlideChute.com. Thanks for the input... and I definitely think I understand your concerns.