The things that pretty much bundle all of the social networking services together are the avatars. They form the core of the networking, and without them, we would be shooting cheers, invitations and connecting in utter darkness. It would be almost impossible to feel connected without the avatars since they will most certainly tell you who you are talking to. Before avatars, we used text chats to connect. Looking back at those days is somehow a bit scary. To imagine that we once chatted away with other people online without knowing even the slightest information about them is indeed a haunting thought. The vast and rich environment that we are now experiencing when connecting on pretty much every social networking service is leaps ahead of all those text based conversations we previously had.
I once talked about how the implementation of video chatting would change the way social networking worked. I made a slight waning that video would not fit the medium since some people are somewhat afraid of appearing in front of cameras. This was; however, also the case with images and biographies on the Internet at one point in the past. So the sooner we get over the “awkwardy” of appearing on a video display, I think we will push the Internet medium to new heights.
But until we do, we will always experiment with the avatars we have to gain maximum attention. Designer and avatar visionary Thomas M has a curve-ball all his own when it comes to Facebook avatars. He decided the default avatar was way too over exposed, and he set out on a mission to hook up a few new ones. With a playful touch, yet a scary angle, he put together a series of almost chilling Facebook avatars that you can use instead of the default Facebook avatar if you don’t want to upload your own picture. I personally wish I had more time to take pictures and put them up on Facebook since it’s always nice to have the most recent pictures representing us. Even though some of those pictures are quite recent, I see people putting up new images daily and that always make me feel lazy and delayed. One day I will get to it and make all my Facebook friendlies happy and joyful. Whether or not the pictures will be any good is another question…
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