What Is an Avatar?

I registered one myself on 9 May of this year at www.gravatar.com - iinuu. But later, when I proudly announced to friends that I finally had an avatar on the web, many replied: "How nice - but what exactly is it?" So then, about avatars.

An avatar - an embodiment, also a web user's image: a small static or animated picture, often limited in size (a certain number of pixels), usually not a real photograph. It is typically displayed in private settings, in communication programmes (such as Messenger or Skype), in a registered user's profile on forums, in chat, on websites, portals, blogs and social networks. An avatar can be either a photograph or an illustration. It is used to personalise a user - it reflects and visualises some characteristic of the user and helps create a first impression.

The concept of avatar is found in the Hindu religion, where a single deity can take many different forms. For example, the deity Vishnu has 22 avatars.

The term "avatar" was first used in 1985 in the computer game Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, where a visual character represented the player in the virtual world. Later the term was used in the role-playing game Shadowrun (1985) and the online role-playing game Habitat (1987). The rapid development of the internet created the opportunity to use this function outside of virtual games.

The IINUU avatar was created simply and recognisably, by processing my photograph in LunaPic Online Photo Editor. So if you see my face next to an article, that means you're reading what I think about it all! :)