Make Your Own Avatar & Talk to Others Online
An avatar is the small picture that appears next to your username when you talk to others online in message boards, instant message programs and some chat rooms. Creating your own avatar allows you to show others what you look like or what's important to you (i.e. a favorite actor or charity), and prevents you from having to choose an avatar from the site's library of default images. There are countless websites and services that allow you to talk with other people online, whether it be for general chit-chatting or for discussing specific topics, like sports or hobbies.
Instructions
Make Your Own Avatar
1. Decide what you want your avatar to look like. If you don't already have the image you want to use saved to your computer, locate a suitable image online and save it to your hard drive by right-clicking on the image and choosing "Save Image As."
2. Upload your avatar image to a free web-based avatar-creation service.
3. Set the image dimensions to 48 pixels wide by 48 pixels high. This is the standard avatar size on most websites.
4. Save your avatar by right-clicking on the image and choosing "Save Image As."
Talk to Others Online
5. Visit websites related to your favorite hobbies and interests (i.e. baseball, needlework, poodles, specific TV shows). Look for related chat rooms or message boards/forums where you can talk to others who share your interests.
6. Visit online chat websites like Talk City or Chatroulette where other people looking to chat gather. If the first person you start chatting with doesn't quite suit you, move on to someone else.
7. Sign up for Twitter. Use TweepSearch to locate people who live near you and/or who share your interests and strike up a conversation by sending them an "@" reply. To send an @ reply, format your Twitter message like this:
@TheirUsername Your message here.
Replace "TheirUsername" with their Twitter handle, and replace "Your message here" with a specific message to that person.
