Automattic Acquires Gravatar

Some evening acquisition news: Automattic, makers of Wordpress and spam-fighter Akismet have acquired Gravatar. Never heard of Gravatar before? I am sure you have seen the avatars attached to people’s comments on various blogs. Here is what they do "officially":

A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is quite simply an 80×80 pixel avatar image that follows you from weblog to weblog appearing beside your name when you comment on gravatar enabled sites. Avatars help identify your posts on web forums, so why not on weblogs?

Terms of the deal were not disclosed but it does appear that some major (positive) changes are coming for Gravatar including: larger sizes for the avatars, faster servers, microformats, and more.

Om discusses the deal plus he reasoning why startups should team up to grow. I agree with him and know that leveraging others is the spirit of the current version of the Web. You help me, I help you, we both grow.